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Thursday March 28, 2024

Where PTI went wrong

By Mazhar Abbas
October 24, 2018

The PTI in Sunday’s by-elections retained two out of its three seats it had won on July 25. It’s quite remarkable that it won NA-247 and PS-111, Karachi, vacated by President Dr Arif Alvi and Sindh Governor Imran Ismail while it lost the one vacated by governor, Khyber Pakh-tunkhwa, KP-71, Peshawar.

The recent results of back-to-back by-elections could be seen as ‘mixed reaction’, from its voters and supporters. Where they went wrong and whether they will learn from their mistakes or not is yet to be seen.

The PTI’s back-to-back victory in Karachi since July 25, clearly gives more confidence to its local as well as central leadership as it set its next target to win next year’s local bodies elections from Karachi. While the MQM-P has not accepted the results clearly indicate that despite low turnout the difference still of few thousands and not few hundred. Split within the MQM factions and PSP’s failure to improve its position further helped the PTI. The party completed hat trick in NA-247 since 2013.

Irrespective of the deteriorating economic conditions and decision to seeking IMF support, the government decisions to put more and more burden on common man would hurt the party and the government. If people want across the board accountability for the ‘corrupt’ they also want relief and less burden. So, reports of raise in power tariff after increase in gas and CNG would not help and bring more pressure on the prime minister and his team. It is true that popular leaders have the capacity to take some unpopular decisions but if those decisions are too irrational it also damages leader’s popularity graph.

PM should not run the government on media’s or journalists' advice but on his own advisers’ advice and that is why it is so important to have good advisers.

Whether the PTI or Imran Khan agree with this perception or not but the fact remains that his decision of replacing former chief minister Pervaiz Khattak, was wrong. They have already lost Bannu, Attock, Swat and now Peshawar within 60 days. Who knows better than Imran himself that if you drop the player who has performed it often cost a match and series. This is exactly what happened in KP’s case after general elections.

One may disagree with the style of Khattak, who is now the defence minister and now been accused of giving too many seats within the family but at the end of the day he succeeded. He created history when for the first time the PTI not only retained its government in KP but also secured two- third majority. What better result Imran could get. So what was the reason for replacing Khattak, only Imran knows but since he is now at the Centre, the PTI is struggling in KP.

Similarly, nomination of Usman Buzdar as Punjab chief minister was a bad choice not because he belong to Rajanpur in South Punjab or because he is very honest person but, because in 60 days he proved to be a bad administrator. But, prime minister looked quite adamant to keep him as long as the PTI is in power, there is little one can do. The PTI had already lost Lahore. Though some of my colleagues from Punjab disagree with me but I still believe that his decision to quit from Lahore seat which he had won against the PML-N senior leader Kh Saad Rafique was not the right decision.

It was very clear that if Imran found it tough to defeat veteran and vocal PML-N leader and won the seat by close margin of around 700 votes, how could any other PTI candidate and that too Humayun Akhtar, who is a seasoned politician but a stranger in the PTI as compared to Waleed Iqbal, would have been able to retain this crucial seat.

It’s a dilemma for otherwise soft-spoken Buzdar, who already has been warned by the Supreme Court in Pakpattan case, and nearly survived the decision to replace Punjab IGP as the principles set in the case of Sindh IGP were relaxed and not followed here.

But Imran Khan and the PTI government received a setback that once PM’s trusted IGP, KP, Nasir Durrani, whom he had appointed to reform Punjab police resigned. It’s now more than clear and appears that the government has now been ‘shelved’. Since Durrani left, the government has not appointed anyone else for ‘police reforms’.

One ‘muft advice’ is Punjab Police Order, 2002 is still very much relevant and if the premier really wants to depoliticise Punjab Police, he just needs to form Public Safety Commission (PSC), which the previous PML-N government did not constitute for political reasons.

Sources said the present IGP Punjab is said to be in the good books of Governor Ch Sarwar. So it is very unlikely that we may see any drastic police reforms like Police Order, 2002 or Police Order of KP.

Talking to some of the PTI and PML-Q leaders in Punjab, they agreed that the decision of Buzdar was taken as compromise in order to avoid further grouping in the party. This not only resulted in continued interference from centre but weakness at the executive level may damage the PTI government in the province as people are saying there are more than one CM in Punjab.

It was Imran’s bad luck that his automatic choice Aleem Khan still facing NAB inquiry while complete disqualification of Jahangir Tareen (JT) badly hurt IK’s plan and then Shah Mahmood Qureshi lost seat from Punjab as well.

According to a very senior PML-Q leader, the party assured Imran that they would take Buzdar along and try to make him successful. “We gave this assurance when the PM asked us to guide and support Buzdar, whom he brought because of party’s internal grouping,” he added.

Now, if the PTI’s own leaders and ministers admitted that they lost their seats because of wrong selection of candidates due to intra-party differences it showed its own weaknesses.

If there are reports that PTI leaders have suggested Imran that all those party leaders who also hold ministries should quit their party offices except chairman Imran Khan is correct, it would be a landmark decision. But party should go for party elections within a year instead of following the traditional pattern of nominations.

Separation of the party from the government always helps the both. Party can guide the government and also continue the organisational work. Former premier Benazir Bhutto after her first return from exile in 1986, made such an attempt but some bad PPP advisers foiled her move to bring some kind of democracy within the party.

One has to wait and see which policy Imran would adopt. PTI’s last party elections were held in 2013, and now it had adopted the traditional way of nominations or go for polls.

I believe Prime Minister Imran Khan’s biggest mistake was that he had set a deadline for himself and his government of 100-day to set direction of his new government. You don’t set direction after coming to power but set it before coming to power as how you would run the government and should have got themselves well-prepared.

By setting the deadline, PM unnecessarily brought pressure on himself and his federal and provincial governments. This allowed media to remind him after 30 days, 60 days and then 90 days till government completed its 100 days. He and his PTI government are here for five years and can’t be removed through any extra-constitutional way. So relax and set your direction.

The writer is a senior columnist and analyst of Geo, The News and Jang

Twitter: @MazharAbbasGEO