Principled pathway to civilian supremacy

Imran Khan is the best thing to happen to civilian supremacy since Bhutto. I’ve been making this argument in my columns over the last twelve months but have been called out by friends who say Khan’s fight for civilian supremacy isn’t principled, it’s simply a play for power. They argue that I can’t ask them – as supporters of civilian supremacy – to scream and shout about PDM’s human rights abuses against PTI supporters because I didn’t raise my voice loudly enough against similar charges when PTI was in power.

Today, I’m going to engage with this thesis and argue that the PTI needs to publicly accept and apologise for transgressions in their tenure, if they really want to be a champion of civilian supremacy and broaden their coalition. First, a quick recap of why I feel Khan is delivering a masterclass on civilian supremacy. He was booted out of power last year thanks to a behind-the-scenes deal to put PDM at the helm. Instead of going into exile, Khan literally bet his Zaman Park house and the party on holding elections as quickly as possible and returning to power through the ballot box. The powers-that-be don’t want to hold elections because they’re afraid of the PTI winning.

And Khan isn’t compromising on his core demand of elections, resulting in brutal state repression against his supporters. It started with the murder of Arshad Sharif, the jailing and torturing of senior PTI leadership, leaking of private videos, an assassination attempt on Khan himself, media censorship, killing a party worker and shelling the workers with tear gas and rubber bullets. This is classic behaviour to get any civilian leader in Pakistan to fall in line. But Khan keeps making a singular demand to hold elections on the constitutionally mandated timeline of 90 days. If this isn’t what civilian supremacy looks like, I’m afraid I’ll never know what it looks like in Pakistan.

But all this isn’t good enough for my friends. They argue none of this counts because similar charges of repression did occur when PTI was in power. I could argue that PTI wasn’t as violent – there were no bullets fired on Nawaz Sharif, instead he flew to London on a private jet, no social media worker of PML-N or PPP has ever disappeared, no Pakistani journalist was shot dead on foreign soil during PTI’s tenure, no PML-N/PPP rally was tear-gassed or shelled, but I’m not going to do that because repression is repression. Activists like Ammar Ali Jan and Ammar Rashid were picked up in PTI’s tenure.

PTM was demonised and repressed. Nawaz’s speeches were banned on the media. Journalists were picked up, tortured and shot at. If it’s wrong now, it was wrong then. PTI should accept and apologise for their transgressions and pledge to do better in a principled way if they come back to power. This isn’t just important for Pakistan but also for PTI. Let me explain. The traditional playbook for controlling civilian leaders in Pakistan is collapsing at Shehbaz speed. You’re scandalising Khan’s Nikkah, releasing sleazy audios, throwing dirt on his integrity but none of it is sticking. The traditional tools of propaganda are failing so quickly that Pakistan’s largest PR firm couldn’t tweet for months because they were being trolled so hard by PTI supporters. The powers-that-be are so afraid of holding elections that they’re literally accepting that the country is so insecure that they can’t provide troops for elections.

PDM is so afraid of elections that it’s accepting that they haven’t been able to manage the economy well enough to pay for elections. This is remarkable stuff. All status quo forces are quivering in their boots. Now is the time to strike a new social contract on the back of a sweeping electoral mandate. But Khan can’t strike a social contract only for his voters, he must strike a new bargain for people who didn’t vote for him either. The only way to broaden Khan’s coalition – which he needs to actually deliver on a two-thirds majority – is to publicly accept and apologise for the excesses of his first tenure and promise to operate in a principled manner going forward. Khan’s supporters already trust that their sacrifices for civilian supremacy will not be squandered. Now Khan needs to earn the trust of those who didn’t vote for him.