I congratulate Aamir Dogar on his by-election win yesterday from Multan NA-149. It is quite clear that Aamir Dogar could not win without the complete support of PTI but it is not clear whether PTI could win without Aamir Dogar. Aamir Dogar’s victory is a victory of status quo politics and interestingly PTI supported it although in our public pronouncements we are denouncing status quo and want change.
In my personal view NA-149 by-election is yet again a failure of PTI to test whether people will vote for ideology or still influenced by personality. We should have given support to an educated man who had a clean track record and could become the face of PTI. NA-149 is considered an urban constituency and it offered an ideal opportunity for PTI to test whether people will support its ideology rather than go after a personality. It also suggests that preparation for elections will be led by SMQ who is the face of electables rather than IK who is the face of ideology. Even commentators yesterday suggested this point.
Another interesting question is that since Mr Dogar openly suggested he was a PTI candidate, will he resign from the seat immediately after taking oath because all other MNAs have already resigned? In PP-107 by election in May 2014, PTI gave ticket to Nighat Intesar Bhatti who earlier contested general elections on PML-N’s ticket. Even at that time I refused to accept it as PTI’s victory and considered it strengthening of status quo. When the time came for resignation she refused to resign. We need to have more self-confidence inside the party rather than looking for crutches like Aamir Dogar and Nighat Intesar Bhatti.
The nation is changing and demanding new leadership. Turncoats cannot be considered representative of PTI ideology. If we fail to develop a rooster of candidates that offer a new beginning, I assure you that we will not emerge as a leading party in the Parliament. Duality of PTI’s policy is the biggest threat to its electoral victory.
ABDUL QUAYYUM KHAN KUNDI
Islamabad