Faltering image

Call a spade a spade and say that the PTI has had a bad week. First came the chaos surrounding the proposed caretaker chief minister; the party spared no fanfare in announcing Nasir Khosa as the consensus candidate for the job, but then torpedoed its own recommendation with about as much grace as Roseanne Barr’s recent meltdown on Twitter. Imran Khan’s ineptitude in forging a consensus within his own party left his critics with smug I-told-you-so smiles. Hardly the ideal plan as it marches towards the next general elections. There was a demonstrable lack of damage control by the party, with members giving often contradictory (and borderline ludicrous) justifications for what had just happened. The PTI found itself wrong-footed with no one else to blame but themselves.

I often wonder: how does Imran Khan manage to get everything wrong about the image his party is supposed to portray? The PTI manifesto centres around the twin concepts of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ à la Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. But unlike the Obama campaign, the PTI is failing at the vital task of crafting an electable image. An image that just cannot be created if your decision-making is about as consistent as Donald Trump’s. Neither are you doing that image-building any favours when you jump out of the frying pan and into the seventh circle of hell by nominating Orya Maqbool Jan as caretaker CM.

Even Imran Khan’s fiercest critics couldn’t have picked a candidate so at odds with what the PTI claims it is. The personification of the criticism that Imran Khan won’t bring change is just regression. Orya Maqbool Jan, to put it lightly, has rather distasteful views on women. For the PTI to nominate him, at a time when the entire world is opening its eyes to the rights of women, is a textbook example of shooting yourself in the foot. According to Mian Mahmoodur Rashid, Jan’s name was put forward after getting the go-ahead from Imran Khan himself. However, after every person with an ounce of sense in their brain called Jan’s nomination a horrible idea on social media, Fawad Chaudhry claimed it had all been a misunderstanding. Just what is going on in the PTI camp?

Then there was Farooq Bandial, a convicted criminal who went from posing alongside Imran Khan, with the PTI flag draped around his shoulders, to being expelled from the party in a matter of hours. One has to wonder: if social media backlashes didn’t exist would the PTI have woken up to this rather ridiculous decision on its own?

Is the indecisiveness all because of the rift existing between Jahangir Tareen and Shah Mehmood Qureshi? A rift that flows all the way back to the sad Lodhran election in which even the PTI — the party of ‘change’ — succumbed to the scourge of nepotism and lost a vital seat. Battering its claims of ‘change’ with its own bat. Actually, it seems that the PTI’s strategy regarding its public image has remained flawed since the Panama Papers decision was handed down by the Supreme Court. It was outmanoeuvered by the PML-N in terms of the moulding of the narrative. The PML-N warped a decision regarding corruption into an assault on the sanctity of the vote, robbing the PTI of all momentum from the decision. While the Sharif brothers began highlighting steps taken to curb load-shedding and build mass public transport the PTI was…embracing Amir Liaquat? A man who would get along nicely with Orya Maqbool Jan, and who has equally distasteful views on Pakistan’s religious minorities.

There is no doubt that when Imran Khan is in his element he seems unstoppable. The ideal leader, a man who could lead Pakistan into the future. Just look at the captivating speech he gave at Minar-e-Pakistan in April. Never has Imran Khan looked more electable. But instead of the PTI highlighting its strengths, such as its achievements in K-P, it has kept its internal party fissures in the limelight. Rather than an electable image it has succeeded in painting a picture of dissonance and contradictions. What good are slogans of change if the PTI supports people like Orya Maqbool Jan? How is the PTI different from political dynasties if Ali Tareen is contesting elections in Lodhran? The PTI needs someone on board who actually knows how to create an electable image for the party, otherwise disappointment in the shape of the 2018 elections lies lurking on the horizon.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2018.

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