FRANKFURT: Imran Khan’s mantra is deceptively simple. He symbolises change. He is the change. And the forces of status quo, defenders of the rotten system out there don’t want him to succeed. It includes everything and everyone outside the PTI tribe. It is Imran Khan, the simple, noble and naïve versus the system, powerful and evil, and while Khan has ‘the nation’, ‘the people’ on his back the evil system is constituted by the PML-N, the PPP and international powers. It is a conspiracy of cosmic proportions. One interesting and notable omission in Imran’s narrative, nevertheless, is the much talked about Deep State, the Establishment, alleged by everyone else to take sides and play favourites in every election in Pakistan’s history.
The issue here is not about the much needed reforms in Pakistan’s electoral system. There is a lot of rot to be stemmed. There is much in electoral practices across the country that needs to be changed. This is as true for Punjab and Sindh and Balochistan as it is for K-P where Khan’s party is in power. The question of electoral reforms is on no one’s agenda. The problem, as already suggested, is the impression one gets about the monopolisation of victimhood by Imran Khan. The problem is that his argument that everything in the country that has anything to do with the electoral system has been designed to one end: to keep him out of power. Popular political sentiment and public discourse that is being fiercely pushed here is not meant to reform the electoral system. It is meant to bring Imran Khan in the Prime Minister House, through mid-term elections. Only such an end will justify the means, i.e., transparency and credibility of the electoral process. Nothing short of that will suffice.
Ali Mohsin Goraya
Published in The Express Tribune, August 28th, 2014.
