PTI needs to change its style of politics
NA-122 transformed from a routine mid-term by-election contest into a grand duel between the inflated egos of PTI and PML-N. One seat here or there was immaterial for either party in the number game at this stage. However, for Imran Khan it had become a matter of retrieving his personal honour. His stand-in had to capture this seat on his behalf in order to prove conclusively that his defeat in the 2013 election was engineered by bogus votes. Conversely, PML-N had to regain this seat to assert that its candidate had won fair and square and the rigging allegations are fabricated.
PTI has, to this day, not been able to reconcile that despite a tsunami of its voters the party could not secure the requisite majority to form a government at the centre. Its followers are also convinced the PML-N had conspired and colluded with state institutions in a grand sinister plan to steal the 2013 General Election from the PTI that was rightfully theirs.
PTI took its case to the streets. It sought to mobilise public agitation, allegedly under a well considered plan and some patronage. It embarked on a relentless, no holds barred campaign, dharnas and civil disobedience of sorts leveling charges of mass scale organised manipulation, coining the now popular term of dhandli. The herculean effort engulfed the entire nation in turmoil and incapacitated smooth governance. It, however, consistently failed to meet targets or to achieve its stated objectives. Firstly, it fell short of sufficient numbers that could pose a real threat to force the government to resign. The umpire did not raise its finger and the judicial commission stopped short of endorsing its claim of systematic rigging.
The October 11 by-election was perhaps the last chance or the grand finale for the PTI’s two-year slog that could still vindicate its allegation and prove the PML-N had stuffed the ballot boxes in favor of its candidates. To its chagrin, the much hyped and much desired seat was lost albeit with a slim margin of 2,440 votes and after a well fought contest during which money was of no consideration. The provincial seat it took away from PML-N was of little consolation.
As the Duke of Wellington said after winning the 1918 battle of Waterloo, ‘It was the nearest run thing you saw in your life.’ The defeat at Waterloo ended Napoleon’s rule as emperor of France and he abdicated four days later. Closer to modern times in 2014, the leader of Scottish Nationalist Party said after narrowly losing the historic referendum for independence of Scotland from the United Kingdom: ‘Referendum is over. We must now move on.’ The SNP chief and first minister Alex Salmond resigned hours later as an acknowledgment of his failure to achieve the YES vote.
Such grace is yet to be discovered in our politics. Some leaders reminisce and never tire of quoting examples from Britain, its principles and ethics. Do they ever lead by following those examples? Certainly not, God forbid. Chaudhry Sarwar, a successful millionaire British businessman and politician and a fresh entrant in PTI, had led his maiden election campaign for the PTI in NA-122 in a professional state of the art manner on a British pattern. He was originally introduced to Pakistani politics by Nawaz Sharif, as Governor of Punjab and had later defected to PTI. Ironically, when it came to accepting the election results, he too set aside the traditional grace of British parliamentarians for accepting defeat.
The PTI lost no time in levelling allegations of vote transfers that as yet remain unsubstantiated. Once again, the hysteria of pre-poll rigging has prevailed that the PTI considers synonym with the PML-N, the election commission and the government machinery. When will we stop living in the past and hammering our fragile institutions, without any care for the future?
By-elections should provide moments of reflection for political parties. Imran Khan has been basking in the glory of the tremendous success it had achieved since the game changing October 2012 rally at Minar-e-Pakistan. He had awakened the Pakistani youth and the indifferent drawing room chattering educated middle class males and females by his personal magnetism and track record. He had infused an enthusiasm and motivation in the general public, not witnessed since Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s social revolution of the seventies. A plausible alternative had come into being.
PTI’s surge in its mass popularity was its fundamental philosophy of building “Naya Pakistan”, as Bhuttos’s was ‘power to the people’. Even with Bhutto gone, PPP survived as a potent political entity for four decades based on its undeterred romance with the grass root common people. As the events have unfolded, the Naya Pakistan of Imran Khan is still nowhere to be seen. Instead, he appears to have meandered from the initial high moral ground and ideals and drifted into the conventional mode of Pakistani politics. A recent opinion poll indicates his popularity to be diminishing as a political leader. The party should return to the drawing board to chart a winning course afresh and arrest the decline.
PML-N must also reflect on its shortcomings that led to losing a provincial seat in its stronghold and narrowly managing to win the national seat by a hair’s breadth. The voters have lodged a loud and clear protest and dissatisfaction at the government’s indifference toward their basic local needs such as clean drinking water, sewerage, primary education and health and the lack of job creation for the unemployed. It must reassess the priority it places on mega projects and their cost benefit ratio on public popularity. The voters have vocally expressed their displeasure at the absence of their representatives from the constituency and seek attention for matters that matter to them most.
PTI’s rivals claim he has introduced the politics of agitation, inappropriate language, personalised attacks on opponents and desecrating state institutions. They accuse Imran Khan of using street power to bring down the government instead of following the democratic process and the impatience he has exhibited to seek a short cut to the prime minister house.
PTI counters by claiming to be the only real democratic opposition in the country. It accuses the PML-N of governing with a muk muka with the PPP. The PTI wants to be a player within the existing system. Yet, its members submitted their mass resignations from the National Assembly, expressing no confidence in the ‘fake’ house. At the same time, the party kept its government intact in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The rationales are bewildering.
This policy of negative showmanship has weakened the existing political system and the governance, a relic of the nineties. Only the PTI has substituted for the PPP, the arch-rival of PML-N at the time. The confrontation mode has failed to reinforce the party position as proved by the results of all recent bye elections.
The Charter of Democracy carved between the PPP and PML-N had earlier resulted in a smooth five years run of democratic governments and a peaceful transfer of power. Many people believe the PTI is within its rights to follow any type of politics it chooses, as long as the process of national reconstruction is not put at stake.
Perhaps the PTI should carve a ‘charter of economy’ with the ruling party to allow economic progress and nation building to materialise unhampered, keeping politics aside. Chinese investment on the economic corridor and other prospects of foreign investment are becoming distinct possibilities with improved law and order situation. Politicians must not squander this opportunity to their personal acrimony in their quest for power. To rule over ruins of a shattered economy and a beleaguered nation will be nothing but a nightmare for any sane party.