The Year of Imran Khan

It was Imran Khan’s year all the way. He had single-handedly added a vibrant new dimension to domestic politics by mid-December 2014. But for the horrendously painful tragedy of December 16, he would have entered the new year leading the country into a political environment too difficult to deal with for the old guards. No doubt, he dealt with only half-truths and anecdotal evidence as he accused Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of rigging the May 2013 elections; he could still make his allegations stick because of the government’s visible failures on the democratic front and his own uncanny ability to mobilise countrywide support for his cause, using all the democratic options available to him, which at times looked almost extra-constitutional. His critics accused him of trying to lead his supporters like the Pied Piper of Hamelin right into the river of no return.

Let us briefly recall here the political situation existing at the time of his march on Islamabad on August 14. The prime minister was behaving like a monarch rather than an elected leader accountable to parliament. He was rarely seen visiting the National Assembly while gracing the Senate only once. Cabinet meetings had become a rarity. Heading a party which was already a tightly-knit family faction, he had turned the government into a family-owned entity distributing at the same time important government jobs to friends and close cronies. So much so that he did not feel any qualms nominating a Lahore MNA for the post of the National Assembly speaker. Never before in Pakistan’s democratic history, the two posts, that of the prime minister and the National Assembly speaker, had gone to one province, let alone to one city.

Clearly, the ruling party’s leadership was taking undue advantage of the decision of the parliamentary opposition to strictly abide by the rules of the Charter of Democracy signed between the late Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in London in 2007. The PPP leadership’s visionless approach to democratic norms and its alleged preoccupation with self-aggrandising activities also further expanded the vacuum for Imran to walk in easily with his containers and hordes of youngsters, both male and female, swaying to the beats of Abrarul Haq through DJ Butt’s rich sound system, to effectively take over the mantle of the opposition from outside parliament. It was an unbeatable combination. A made-to-order media personality, charismatic, stunningly articulate, haranguing a narrative with which even his staunchest opponents could not disagree and backed by a huge store of credibility built since the World Cup victory under his captaincy and beefed up by the successes of Shaukat Khanum Hospital and Namal University, both made possible with public donations, attesting to his impeccable financial integrity. This was the man who had captured the imagination of almost the entire nation — comprising both supporters and opponents — via the 24/7 live broadcast media, which lapped him up as if nothing mattered in Pakistan other than Imran.

He had shocked the nation into sitting up and listening to him by demanding the unattainable — the prime minister’s resignation. A vast majority of those who listened to his harangues was genuinely disturbed by the language he was using while addressing the prime minister and other important political personalities. They were also genuinely troubled by his calls for civil disobedience and his supporters’ physical clashes with law enforcers. Many actually believed that he was fronting for the boots. He made two mistakes during the dharna period. One was following Dr Qadri as the latter tried to storm the PM House and secondly, letting his followers join the Minhaj crowd when it invaded the PTV premises. But lesser leaders would have found it almost impossible, no matter how serious a national tragedy, to climb down from the high horse they were riding in the face of imminent rebellion from swelling supporters and it would have taken only the bravest to do a political about-face on the issue of the Taliban. Only visionary leaders with an astute political sense would even think of accomplishing such an about-turn on one of the most important political planks of their party. He was so thick with the so-called ‘good’ Taliban that when early this year the government invited the terror organisation for negotiations, they named Imran on their negotiating team. Now that he has finally recognised the Taliban for what they are, one expects him to go public against them using his immense store of credibility and integrity to mount the much-needed counter-narrative, inspiring the crowds to shout: ‘Go Taliban, Go!’

Published in The Express Tribune, December 31^st, 2014.

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