PTI’s dharna: gains and losses

Letter October 08, 2014
A general sense of unrest, anxiety and uncertainty exists all over the country

ISLAMABAD: After more than six weeks of the PTI-PAT protests in the heart of the capital and the turbulent times we have experienced, it is time to evaluate the potential gains of the protests if successful, the risks in event of failure and the unintended consequences. The potential gains the PTI would achieve, by its own criterion, would be to force the prime minister to go on leave for 30 days and for the Punjab chief minister to resign. Investigation of electoral fraud would be conducted leading to electoral reforms, the Election Commission of Pakistan would be reconstituted and those guilty of electoral fraud would be tried in a court of law. An interim government formed by national consensus would be installed, would conduct an audit of the expenditures of the PML-N government and then hold new elections.

The gains, if achieved, would be illusory. The PML-N will install a replacement for Nawaz Sharif, who will be more loyal than the king, so nothing will be achieved by making Nawaz go on leave. With such a result, any hope for a national government or new elections would remain a pipedream. Hence, we have to conclude that to actually achieve the many commendable and worthwhile objectives of the PTI, something quite drastic would have to occur and result in the PTI winning a majority of the seats in the National Assembly. The numbers assembled at D-Chowk, even if supported by millions in front of their television screens, are not enough to trigger any extraordinary intervention, barring some blunder by the government.

The potential losses of the PTI, in the event of failure, would start with the loss of all hard-won assembly seats, which would then be declared vacant. The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government would become untenable. This would demoralise the PTI supporters and could lead to a lack of interest among them in the dharnas, and if that were to happen, the PTI’s most significant item of leverage would be lost. FIRs and civil lawsuits against the PTI and its chief would be filed and this would tax their resources and energy. In time, the party would be banished to the political wilderness until the next polls.

If the PTI fails to achieve what it has described as its non-negotiable demands, including the demand for the prime minister’s resignation, it will suffer a backlash of resultant frustration and anger, accentuated by the loss of assembly presence acquired at great effort and expenditure.

As for what has actually happened, the Chinese president’s very important visit was put off. A general sense of unrest, anxiety and uncertainty exists all over the country. Questions have arisen about the future security of investments, property, social status and preservation of the way of life that many are accustomed to. A vast amount of expectations and hopes have been created — especially for those who believe in ‘Naya Pakistan’ — but the reality is that most of these will not be fulfilled anytime soon. There is no overarching conceptual vision or analysis yet for the tasks at hand that the PTI wants to carry out. This is all the more worrisome, given Pakistan’s large population, limited resources, corruption and with fault lines like extremism, sectarianism and provincialism running through its social fabric. Major constitutional, legal, structural, institutional, economic, cultural and social, not to mention political, issues need to be addressed in a comprehensive fashion and here, too, no single party is equipped to do this by itself, including the PTI. One negative unintended consequence of the dharnas has been the damage to discipline and respect for authority in a country that already suffers from a deficiency of public order.

Khalid Fareed Khan

Published in The Express Tribune, October 9th, 2014.

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