As political heavyweights of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) attended the ‘peace march’ last weekend, provincial leaders, who were responsible for extensive media publicity in the area, were sidelined.
Neither did the local leadership seem enthusiastic about the march nor did they seem to drive enough activists from Peshawar.
Despite claims of tens of thousands participating in the rally, activists from Peshawar did not exceed three digit numbers and only 20 vehicles left the provincial capital for the southern districts.
During the rally, majority of the provincial leadership was not seen close to the PTI chairman, who was overwhelmingly occupied with the central and Punjab-based PTI leadership.
Besides two foreign ministers, Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Javed Hashmi, Arif Alvi, Jehangir Tareen, Afzal Sindhu, Fauzia Kasuri, Inamullah Niazi and Malik Amin Aslam among others marched alongside Imran from Islamabad to DI Khan and onward to the border of South Waziristan.
Meanwhile, provincial leaders Iftikhar Khan Jhagra and Saleem Khan did not participate in the march.
All provincial party cabinets were dissolved earlier in May and with general elections ahead, there is lessening possibility that the PTI will be able to hold intra-party elections.
Besides having few voters, another way in which the insignificance of the provincial leadership has been exposed is by the increasing importance of the Insaf Youth Wing (IYW) and Insaf Student Federation (ISF) activists. The younger generation of the PTI see themselves having a more prominent role in party affairs in the province by replacing the existing leadership.
Both IYW and ISF claimed to have the highest number of activists in the rally from K-P, which according to ISF Provincial President Hussain Akhunzada was more than 5,000.
IYW Provincial President Murad Saeed was seen closer to Imran than Asad Qaiser, the former provincial president of PTI, who is also likely to be the provincial president.
Shoukat Yousafzai, another candidate for provincial presidency and former advisor to Imran on political affairs, also proved to be insignificant, adding not more than 10 vehicles in the caravan under his leadership from a city whose population is around five million.
Whether or not PTI’s march to South Waziristan will shape the future political scene in the country, in K-P the PTI has begun to transfuse its party with younger members.
Failure to get local support
Though Khan’s tsunami achieved its objectives of having sent an anti-war, anti-drone message across the globe, it failed to muster local support in Bannu, DI Khan and Tank. These areas have remained a stronghold of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F). The number of locals that had participated in the march and the public gathering in Tank did not exceed the number of activists that came from Punjab, Islamabad and Peshawar.
Most of the local participants were IDPs from Waziristan, while some attended the rally just to have a glimpse of Imran, said Abdullah Mehsood, a participant of the march at Shaikh Yousaf Chowk in DI Khan, where a large number of people were waiting to receive the PTI chairman’s caravan.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 9th, 2012.
COMMENTS (25)
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By the way misleading ehadline ET. You yourself stated that KP old guard being replaced by the youth and student wings, now those are young fresh individuals with no political background of their own, Why dont you guys just admit u mixed two articles into one.
Go PTI Go
hahaha; right after the rally ended, in peshawar a meeting was called in which PTI provincail leadership critisized each other for not having much participation in the rally. wake up. anyone who do follow the interanal politics in PTI does understand how the party and its chief is being highjacked by the capitalist, oppurtunist and currupt politicitions that have recently joined PTI. how about Khursheed Mehmud Kasuri, i hope PTI activists still remember him. he allowed the Drone attacks in Pakistan and now he is protesting against it and that too without any formal appology. the innocent PTI activists need to wake up. PTI is selling hope but it will disasterous if these ghoons come into power.
I know why media is biased because if Imran Came into Power he will surely not give them envelops and there is problem for their "Rozi Roti". So let them be biased. We will have to take a positive impact of media's criticism and make double our struggle. PTI guys dont adopt the policy of "Tit for Tat" Insha Allah victory will be ours. Change begins @ home.
@MAD: Here at ET it is...
Media, please stop rediculing Imran Khan and PTI, let the new entrants gain a foot hold. Why media is biased agsint PTI? I cant understand.
Do people want a change? This is the question everyone ask him/herself. If people want the change they will need to change themselves first. Change to become responsible and caring citizens, upholding justice at all the times. Once people change for the better they will find it easy to come together to participate. Participate in those matters that affect their life and destiny. It is this most important and vital responsibility people will have to shoulder if they ever want to see the change coming their way. In other words it is the people who are responsible for bringing the change. Change by changing their habits and outlook. People throughout the world have for too long been leaving their responsibility for others and this is the reason people do niot see any change happening. People will never see a change. Not until they will come together to bring that change themselves, peacefully, methodically upholding justice at all the time.
No one cares. Not about the rally itself, but what the haters think about it.
Partisan Review
I think that we have now chance to selevt Imran Khan other vise the family political system will come again we will slave for next 5 years
A very biased review by ET
I don't get the point of the article. Were the provincial activists kept out, or did they choose to boycott the rally or is the point elsewhere?
tewari Sahab, I think you should read the Standford University report just out recently which has said that drones strikes result in only 2%, yes only 2% militant deaths, the rest are all civvies. come to think of it, these strikes have been going on for last 8 years, increasing in quantity only in the last four years, but militants have struck more often and with more inpunity showing the drones may kill a few terrorists but they also breed more. So drones are not the answer. Hence proven. They are a classic example of typical American ''cowboy thinking''. Unfortunately cowboy thinking does not work in the tribal areas. Period.
it looks like people are sitting in drawing room and planning how to reduce the impact of rally so they are publishing such staff after two days of rally
Haters commenting can go on frothing and fuming. Success is of Pakistan. If you're having to take a spoonful of salt to swallow this then you should question your loyalties as to why something beneficial for Pakistan's peace cause is causing you so much pain?
And you are saying this has nothing to do with extensive threats of suicide bombers, security threats and blockages created by the Govt. I noticed this time E.T. did not do enough negative media coverage of PTI, but it is making up for it now.
WOW! Clearly the people in charge of this newspaper have no clear understanding of the ground realities, to have allowed such a ridiculous article to be published. You seem to have counted the number of people from KP which is highly questionable. Some people may have left on different days/times? On another note there have also been reports that more than 25000 vehicles took part. That clearly you failed to count! Ha. The entire Tank city was present there and this is from multiple sources that were present on the ground. You do mention that D I Khan, Tank and Bannu are strong hold of JUI-F, yet you fail to see that it was the hypocritic statements of Maulana Fazlur Rehman who was shouting out that there are suicide bombers in the city. Kindly report the news and let us to the judgement, you article makes so sense at all to say the least. Very sad indeed.
Yes terrorists have to lay down their arms to stop drone attacks
another drama of peace march well played by media
Ummm replacing old leaders with young blood isnt such a bad thing is it?
If people want to change their destiny then they have to participate , otherwise they will have to live like this for another five yeas or forever.
What they want to achieve out of this rally ....vote or peace.
.I think none of them could be achieve in this manner . Terrorists have to lay down their arms to avoid the drone attack .