The story of failure to adjust?

PM Imran Khan continues to carry the hopes of many people of this country on his shoulders

The Greek word ‘charisma’ means ‘touched by God’. The Greeks believed that the charismatic leader was not only elected by the people but was specially favoured by God, thus he could accomplish what others could not.

Even his worst critics would agree that the current PM of Pakistan, Imran Khan, has a charismatic personality and going by the Greek mythology and some of the accomplishments that the PM already carries in his ‘achievement bag’, he continues to carry the hopes of many people of this country on his shoulders.

Unfortunately for this country that hope stands at cross purpose of deeply entrenched personal and political interests of many powerful people as well as interest groups in this country.

In the very first four months, the PTI government led by Imran Khan seems to have reached the political crossroads where many people think it may soon become the ‘story of failure to adjust’ to the existing method of conducting and executing politics — the methods that have made Pakistan what it is today — a country still struggling to find its political, social and economic direction.

So do the people want Imran Khan and his party to adjust? Would it be the failure of the charismatic leader if he continues to pursue the conduct of ‘unfamiliar and unaccustomed politics’? What is the familiar and traditional politics that the PM and his party are unwilling to adjust to? The political clash that such a choice is generating has already brought some of the most ideologically dispersed parties under one political platform — the grand opposition. There is actually good news in this.

This polarised political division of those ‘that do not want to adjust’ against those that want to safeguard and protect the politics of status quo is the duel that one would want to witness in politics.

Those who talk of political instability and the promotion of the narrative of the current ‘unstable political period’ forget about the political order that the country was blessed with. Was Pakistan stable? Were some of them captaining its economic rise? Or leading the collapse of terrorism in this country? They are not even ready to agree on some of the ‘Pakistan benefiting’ political ends that even a student of ninth grade would understand and agree.

Is it Pakistan’s eternal fate to deserve corrupt politicians, unresponsive bureaucracy and the unprincipled politics that the major political parties indulge in? In the days ahead will Imran Khan and his party continue with its commitment of not adjusting to and doing the politics of status quo? One assumption is that the political pressure of combined opposition inside and outside parliament with the connivance of an unresponsive bureaucracy and interest groups with vested interests would continue to increase. Would Imran Khan and his party be able to stand up and take that political pressure?

Those opposing Imran Khan are the political authors of removal of all checks on the executive powers. They have been merrily presiding over the erosion of rule of law. Not willing to dilute the ‘powers of elite’ they remained little interested in empowering the institutions. The only institutions that they tried to empower were the legislative assemblies. But the legislative assemblies were empowered only because they were expected to return to them — time and again. Imran Khan had no business becoming the leader of the house — in fact the political arrangement that was created shouldn’t have enabled anyone else to come to majority in the empowered parliament.

The wantoks of Pakistani politics are under the threat of being eliminated. Wantoks are the tribes that live in Papua New Guinea and Solomon islands. Over 900 languages (one talk) are spoken in these countries. Wantoks don’t elect leaders (they call them Big Man) but select them on the basis of ‘their hold on the resources’. How much can they distribute those resources to the members of the tribe?Without resources to distribute, the Big Man would lose his authority to lead.

The resources of the Big Men of our politics are also under threat. The beneficiaries of the resources, (political) gifts and favours surround them, admire them. What the Big Men don’t realise is that a sound political advice or a real admiration can come only from the people who are free.

In the ‘resource distributing political world’ that the Big Men of our politics have created one can find many political slaves to surround him but free men would be difficult to find. The political decays that have occurred in the Big Men’s ‘political party’s is only because of this reason. They speak and understand wantok (one talk), and their own political parties talk offering political loyalties through reciprocated favours doled out to them by the Big Man.

Drenched neck down in their self and party interests, most of the veteran and experienced political leadership have, under the atmosphere of great political disappointment, chosen to align more frequently with their and their party’s self-interest than the interests of the state.

The very recent decision by one of the parties not to grant extension to the military courts speaks of such interests and not the interests of the state. It is never the self-interest that induces the will to sacrifice and die for your country. Politics also has to rise beyond the self-interest to look at the bigger picture.

If a charismatic leader has shown courage to stand up against the Big Men of our politics, he must be prepared to encounter the political wrath of the combined opposition. We already have an example of the reformer President Victor Yushchenko of Ukraine.

The ‘Orange Revolution’ in 2004 brought the people out in Kiev’s Maidan Square to protest against the manipulation of country’s presidential election. But President Victor Yushchenko, once in power, hugely disappointed the very people who had hope and trust in him. The result was that in 2010 elections, Victor Yaunkovich, the very man accused of stealing the 2004 elections, was brought back to power.

Imran Khan has his political work cut out. For him, there will be no second chance — it’s him versus the Big Men. Would it be a story of failure to adjust or a story of political triumph? We will have to wait and see.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2019.

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