Fast & the clueless

Here’s the mother-of-all-problems for the PTI today: It does not have a message any more.

This should be a scary thought for a party that was all about the message. In fact Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf was built around a message, even though this message took some years to resonate. But when it did resonate, it blew a hole through the weak, tired and clichéd narratives of his opponents. Imran the cricketer transformed into Imran the leader only when he began to personify this message and amplify it through his megawatt star power. His was the message of hope; a message that promised a new beginning by breaking away from traditional politics; a message that said an honest and incorruptible leader could make all the difference in a society weighed down by corrupt leadership and suffocating dynastic politics.

Imran was the product of a school whose motto said, “Perseverance Commands Success” and he lived this powerful motto through sheer grit and determination against all odds. He persevered when others gave up and ultimately he commanded success. It was the success of his powerful message and his ability to hammer this message relentlessly till it found traction among the electorate. This electorate then plucked Khan from the wilderness of Pakistan’s political landscape and hurled him to the heights of power.

Perched atop this pyramid, Khan and his party surveyed the land below sagging under the burden of countless festering issues. The leader and his teammates took deep breaths, took a few selfies, and drove into the sea of problems confident they could swim their way to solutions.

But on the way, something strange happened: the PTI gained power and lost its message. How to explain this strange phenomenon? How could a party that specialised in political communication lose its way in the jungle of competing narratives? Before we delve into a complex maze of factors that have led the PTI into this cul-de-sac, it might be useful to take a look at the visible manifestations of this rather odd problem.

Let’s start with the main issue. The state of the economy is obviously the biggest challenge for Khan since he ascended the Iron Throne (no the dragon did not melt this one). The greatest challenge should have produced the greatest response from the new government. Such a response usually has two components: 1) Operational strategy (what you do); 2) Communication strategy (what you say to explain what you do). Finance Minister Asad Umar tried to tackle the first challenge. He failed. But who was supposed to tackle the second challenge?

Well here’s where things got a bit complicated. The new government, like most previous governments, suffered from an institutional ailment: an acute lack of capacity at the Information Ministry. The minister – whoever he or she is – may be good with political rhetoric as an individual but the ministry he or she commands is woefully unsuited to the requirements of modern and complex political communication.

But why blame the Information Ministry only? When it came to media handling, the PTI brought out an entire battalion of advisers, special assistants and random spokesmen who were supposed to ‘handle’ the media in one form or another. They all got so busy in handling this media, they perhaps forgot to handle the message. Instead what we got was a steady stream of how corrupt the previous rulers were.

In fact, this ‘blame-the-others’ mantra reflected a continuity of thought by the PTI when what was needed was an evolution of thought as the party transitioned from the wilderness of opposition to the cosy comforts of government. This trend manifested itself on every issue that has cropped up since August 2018, but it got compounded in the economic realm. Here’s why:

First, the economy was (and is) the biggest issue by far. Second, it is the most difficult issue to explain by far. The PTI punched its face with both hands.

Asad Umar monopolised the economy narrative while he was in office. That didn’t work because he was not on media as much as he should have been and he did not have many others who could speak on his behalf. Some PTI leaders say he even kept the Prime Minister in the dark about the details of his plans. While the economy went south, so did the communication about the economy. Once he and his team were shown the door and a new lineup introduced to a jittery public, one expected a fresh start. We got a fresh start all right, but the communication part remains fuzzy. Where Asad wanted to be the sole spokesman for the economy, the new man trucked out his entire regiment for a press conference. The public was thus faced with an unenviable comparison: the information starvation of the Asad Umar model versus the jumbled, jargon-driven information overload of the Hafeez Shaikh team. If you ask us which was worse, are we allowed to answer: “both”?

Pick any issue and the problem is the same: the PTI’s inability to communicate its message. Initially the party leadership was shackled by its own rhetoric: blame the others and make lots of noise on TV and parliament. Khan and his team should have been smart enough to figure out that this strategy was bound to have diminishing returns. Once these kicked in, the PTI’s perception began to cave in. That slide continues unabated till today.

It does so because the PTI media wizards are failing to grasp the big picture. And they are mixing things: message is not daily dose of news; message is not press conferences; message is not partisan statements; message is not clownish spokesmen in Punjab making silly videos; message is not appointing 40 spokespeople; message is not requesting headlines for the Prime Minister; message is not trashing opponents; message is not point-scoring in talk shows; and message is certainly not measuring performance in airtime minutes and print centimeters.

The message is what the PTI stands for today; message is how the PTI can explain its policies and priorities in simple and effective terms; message is how the PTI can invoke hope in these dark days; message is how this hope can be explained less with flowery rhetoric and more with substantive plans; message is how the PTI can describe its road map for structural reforms for the next few years; and message is how the PTI can link its promises to policy in a rational and convincing manner.

Here’s the problem though: the PTI has too many messengers with no message to convey. Can’t figure out what the PTI is doing and why? Well now you know why you are not the only one who is clueless.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 2^nd, 2019.

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