Disruptive politics — love of people or lust for power

It was on 30 Jan 2020, when I penned ‘Imran Khan — the dying pangs of a dream’ (https://tribune.com.pk/story/2146669/6-imran-khan-dying-pangs-dream/), providing a premise to the events of May 9, 2023. These events are not going to go away easily, without political, psychological and material cost and without haunting the perpetrators. This crisis has raised important points.

First, PTI miscalculated and misread Pakistan’s political culture. A bruised Miltablishment led the PTI camp to erroneously believe that a final popular putsch would unravel Miltablishment, sweeping it away in torrents of PTI-led discontent, along with PDM, enabled into power by Miltablishment under Gen Bajwa. The groundwork for this was laid meticulously months before, through deliberate and assiduously executed social media campaigns, targeting the youth, the retired military community and the silent majority. The credit goes to the 1,000 or so PTI media-warriors on KP government’s payroll, who fought this war to near success...poisoning minds, twisting facts and amplifying PTI’s narrative of haqeeqi azadi through meme-generation, using AI, fake accounts and skewed content. That azadi was cleverly steered from the azadi from the US/West (realising its folly and futility) to azadi from the Miltablishment.

The second PTI miscalculation was IK’s all-out efforts to avoid arrest, resisting and using party cohort as human shield, rebuffing the state authority. It appeared IK was afraid of arrest and jail-time and did not want to leave the comforts of Bani Gala/Zaman Park for some inexplicable reasons. He requested the Supreme Court for night stay at Bani Gala once granted protective bail. A soft leader afraid of arrest, apparently is not a long-term political investment. The merit of his arrest notwithstanding.

Third miscalculation was steering Party’s anger against the Army, under its new leadership. For this, meticulous planning was undertaken with ranking leadership tasked to lead party workers against specific targets nation-wide. PTI confused Army’s current leadership with Gen Bajwa. If an erstwhile DGI can pick up the courage to advise the Prime Minister on intimate family matters involving corruption, you need to draw different parallels.

Diverting the angst against the Army was caused by Army, ostensibly, not interceding with PDM for early elections. So, the Party thought it was free to hold the Army responsible and attack it with abandon. Confronting the Army was the pinnacle of political immaturity and naiveté.

Fourth, the PTI supremo was ill-advised all along by some six or so confidantes including his spouse. The long list of bad advice included the sordid drama of no confidence vote, quitting the National Assembly, the botched long march, dissolving KP and Punjab assemblies, extension to Gen Bajwa and posting of Gen Faiz Hameed, etc. Ironically, he was all along given saner, prudent and mature political advice too, yet he seemed to have picked political choices under superstition, ego and/or hubris laced with malice.

Fifth, the PTI cadre parting ways with IK is doing so under different influences. Some — like most patriotic Pakistanis — are aghast at the ethically, politically and legally indefensible policy of confrontation with one’s own Army. Some simply do not want to endure unending litigations and legal cases, mastered by a NAB nurtured by PTI. A third group thinks the Party leadership, through endemic agitational politics, has closed all political options for them. Therefore, they want to explore their political survival and relevance independently or in some other party. These are the budding politicians, the bedrock of PTI.

Sixth, overusing his Pukhtun base. The fact that IK is disproportionately supported and protected by its Pashtun base is no secret, and KP is his indomitable base of operations. But KP also has a sizeable presence of religious right. Any further polarisation would be dangerous.

That brings us to the political structure of PTI. It is a political movement, yet to mature into a political party, that has dedicated organisation, think tank(s), shadow government and ranking leadership in tiers with defined line(s) of succession. Like all movements, PTI relies on its charismatic leader with fascist proclivities, typical to such movements. He is surrounded by a predatory periphery held together by vested interests, mostly personal and financial. The reigning ideology is power grab, with insaf used as an attractive billboard.

Lack of experience in governance forced PTI in its last stint to appoint young ‘District Coordinators’, who literally crippled district administration in KP, as the official machinery was required to go through these viceroys, creating bottlenecks and causing corruption. A lot is written to advise the Party for its next stint in power, which now seems doubtful after it has shot itself in both feet. One must hurriedly add that PDM by comparison is worse. But you waste your words where you see even a flicker of hope.

The personality of IK is combative, non-accommodative and non-compromising, when riding high, and prone to U-turns, unsavory compromises and tongue-in-cheek under difficult situations. Selective idealism is more fatal than complete idealism. IK’s stubbornness is unsuited to the complex politics of Pakistan, where compromise is the name of the game. Politicians are not angels. So politically attractive sloganeering against corruption may endear gullible masses, these are of no use in effective governance.

IK’s inability and/or unwillingness to compromise and above all, his fat ego divides politics, society and state. He only pays attention to what he wants to listen, as gleaned repeatedly from party insiders. PTI under his stewardship misses the badly needed healing touch, crisis management and being a unifying platform. One is not sure how an unconditional apology to the nation sooner than later might help. But, PDM is in no mood to back down, feeling ascendant after forcing errors on PTI/IK. They equate PTI with TTP for attacking the Army.

Besides the cited errors of judgments, culturally PTI lacks political maturity. Political maturity demands that national institutions should not be rubbed and criticised for cheap political point-scoring. PTI’s young leadership extolls rhetoric, slanted emotion, jibes, point-scoring through constant diatribes and short-term wins without calculating long-term costs. Likewise, avoiding arrest (predicting chances of arrests comically in percentage points) with no regard to the ugly stand-offs with state forces is transactional leadership, whose shelf-life is short and mask, dangerously thin. Dissuading his base from anti-Army violence would have enhanced IK’s political posture. The Party is also poor at learning correct lessons from our political history. The populism of ZA Bhutto and its sad end are cases in point. No amount of social media activism would ever change our potential for revolution as long as our society is tribal, segmentary, and divided.

All this hulla-bulla was ostensibly to force elections ‘before’ the October 2023 due date. That has come to a naught as IK now surrenders to the PDM for October dates. So, what was all the fuss about! During this year of bad politics, the economy tanked, default is looming large and inflation rampant. Not one politician, across the aisle, has shown any real concern for the miserable plight of Pakistan and its people...to serve whom, they make tall claims in the first place.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 1^st, 2023.

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