Rebel PTI

Tareen is reportedly working on creating a ‘new’ PTI to help break up the main Imran Khan-led party’s support base

Former PTI leader Jahangir Tareen and several of his loyalists are reportedly working on creating a ‘new’ PTI to help break up the main Imran Khan-led party’s support base. Despite Imran’s charisma, Tareen has been widely credited for providing the financing necessary for the PTI’s meteoric rise to power, and its ensuing crash — MNAs and MPAs associated with him were instrumental in bring down PTI governments in Islamabad and Lahore.

Tareen’s meetings with senior political figures, including Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani, are being viewed as precursors to a swoop to pick up defectors from the PTI, especially if Imran ends up being disqualified due to any of his court cases. Indeed, such an outcome would also ensure that Tareen can step out of the shadows and formally lead the new party, since he could claim to be confronting Shah Mehmood Qureshi — Imran’s anointed successor — rather than Imran himself.

Several members of the PTI’s second-tier leadership are reportedly willing to jump ship if given the right incentives, and PML-N leaders are facilitating the Tareen group with the hope of reducing Imran’s party’s electability and influence. However, reports also suggest that the PPP is playing its own game and trying to get Tareen and his loyalists to join them instead, in its latest attempt to go back from its current status as a provincial party with limited presence outside Sindh to a genuine national one.

All of this may well tie in to efforts to delay the elections. Although most experts believe PTI will romp to victory in elections for the National, Punjab, and K-P assemblies, it is still essentially a one-man party. Without Imran leading campaigning — pending a conviction leading to a ban on his participation — the party could collapse into an ‘also ran’ contender for most seats, especially if Tareen is willing to bankroll challengers. Even though we have no definite election date, or even month in sight, political intrigue is clearly in high gear.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 2^nd, 2023.

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