The writer served as executive editor of The Express Tribune from 2009 to 2014
The PTI’s meteoric rise since November 5th, 2011 when Imran organised a grand public meeting in Lahore followed by another equally grand public outing on December 25th the same year in Karachi was a fascinating political spectacle. Imran had caught the fancy of a good number of the country’s youth which whole heartedly voted for the PTI in 2013 elections bagging for Imran one whole province — Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) — and bringing him too close to power for the comfort of the already entrenched national political parties — the PML-N and the PPP.
In the 1990s, the establishment had successfully played the PPP and the PML-N against each other to keep the two from defying the ‘puppeteer’. During Zardari’s five-year rule following the 2008 elections as well the establishment had used the same trick — using the PML-N to keep the PPP government from crossing any of its well-defined red lines.
And by the time the PPP went for the 2013 elections it had lost even the last drop of its popularity, thanks largely to Manzoor Wattos, Babar Awans, Firdous Ashiqs and Rehman Maliks, and many like them promoted by Asif Zardari at the cost of scores of dedicated party workers.
So, it was but natural for the establishment to cultivate the promising new kid on the block, the PTI, to keep the PML-N government from crossing the red lines. And one soon saw a lot many tested and tried political stalwarts nurtured by the establishment over many decades crossing over to the party perhaps on the advice of you-know-who or may be following their own sharp political instincts. Some others came close to the PTI without joining it. The most conspicuous of this lot was Shiekh Rasheed Ahmed of the Awami Muslim League and Tahirul Qadri of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek.
And since the day (August 19, 2014) Imran followed Qadri and his ‘dedicated’ band of men and women into the red zone in Islamabad accompanied by Rasheed his politics appears to have gone into a kind of reverse gear. From this point on he seemed to have embraced Zia’s obscurantism and abandoned the ideals of the Quaid and Iqbal.
Imran wasted much time in trying to politically persecute the PML-N instead of expanding the PTI’s reach in Sindh (both rural and urban) and Balochistan. He seemingly even neglected southern Punjab and was seen focusing mostly on central Punjab, the PML-N’s strongest constituency. The result was predictable.
The tragedy was while his single-minded focus all through the last 54 months on ousting Nawaz Sharif before the end of his five-year tenure was highly successful ultimately, the successes the PTI had achieved in K-P by way of improved governance and social reforms had remained largely obscured by his sit-ins, lock-downs and legal capers.
What was even worse was his decision to take sides in the media war that had followed the 2014 clash between the then ISI chief and a leading media organisation. Imran should have known that most media organisations in the country do not subscribe to any code of ethics with the one leading the pack violating it with total impunity. He seems to have paid dearly for taking sides in this war.
From a person of his qualities, one had expected Imran to lead and not to be led by losers like Qadri and Rasheed. But somehow he seems to have lost his way either because these two losers had successfully persuaded him to believe that they have direct access to deep state which they seem to have convinced him is eager to see him form the next government in Islamabad, or perhaps in his eagerness to achieve his goal he had consciously decided to become a willing puppet in the hands of the ‘puppeteer’.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 27th, 2018.
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