Pakistan’s ‘most popular leader’

Letter July 18, 2011
God knows how badly we need change and how ready we are for it.

NEW YORK: I read with great interest Rasul Baksh Rais’s piece on Imran Khan and the changing political scene in Pakistan titled “Kaptaan, the country’s most popular leader” (July 13). I mostly concur with the writer’s arguments about Pakistani politics and Imran Khan’s popularity, but have some reservations on his politics.

As a young Pakistani, with access to education and print and electronic media, I am still unaware of what Imran Khan’s politics or “the very clear agenda of change” is. I know he is against corruption, American imperialism and war but I don’t know what his plans are, or his agenda for political reform. Additionally I fear his party is a one-man show and hardly democratic — he is the only leader most people know of, apart from Dr Shireen Mazari and Dr Awab Alvi’s father. Has the PTI ever held internal elections? And if not, then how is it different from the dynastic politics of the PPP, ANP and the PML-N? The only thing Imran Khan has is popular appeal and zeal — and we in Pakistan have suffered and paid the price of our penchant for personality cults.

God knows how badly we need change and how ready we are for it. I don’t care who it comes through, but it has to be well thought-out and systematic, something that Imran Khan’s politics has failed to be.

Rahma Muhammad

Published in The Express Tribune, July 19th, 2011.