Re-booting the narrative

It is time for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf led by Imran Khan to get on with the business of governance

With Eid passed and much of the dust thrown up by the General Election and its result now settling, it is time for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led by Imran Khan to get on with the business of governance. Thus far there is next to nothing to measure the new dispensation by. A handful of vanilla speeches — a curmudgeonly set of exchanges in parliament during the opening session and some displays of naiveté that suggest there is not much in the intellectual footlocker — seem to be all that is on offer, but there is more. And potentially much more.

It is no exaggeration to say that there is a reboot of the political narrative in process. Whether it is going to produce lasting and sustainable change is too early to say but the dynasts are in the process of being routed, not yet gone and will be long remembered, but there is a new beast in the political menagerie. A beast that is media-savvy carries a smartphone and is in large part under 30 years old. It has a widening urban footprint and more than a rural toehold.

Despite there being a significant Old Guard presence in the new cabinet some of them sitting on ‘old money’ the script they are busy writing on a day-to-day basis is nothing like that which played for decades in the past. For one thing it is more personal, more engaged and whatever its yet-threadbare content it has the feel and the sound of being different. There is an emerging sense of governance speaking to the populace at large, whatever their political affiliations and adherences.

The adversaries of the new government have no choice but to listen as do their followers. They were on the losing side, albeit by a tight margin but a win is a win. Pakistan was long overdue for a re-boot of the political narrative, ossified and corrupt as it was. Foreign policy to be made in the Foreign Office? Austerity and belt-tightening? Eye-balling the civil service? We await developments as the saying goes. Soon. 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2018.

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