Imran Khan; beginning of the end?

The new probable face of politics

At long last Imran Khan made a political decision but only to kickstart the process of his downfall.

Calling off the Nov 2 protest plan is a testimony that Imran Khan’s expectations and estimations have proved wrong. And it has proved that he is a non-political animal. The announcement of converging on Parade Ground for thanksgiving today (Nov 2) aside, he has failed miserably. And this time his supporters have noted it.

It is good that something grave happening to the country was averted at the eleventh hour. But what have we gained? A loss to the economy and an unnecessarily extended period of political uncertainty. If you had to agree to an institutional (Supreme Court) solution, why didn’t you do it in the first place?

But let’s go beyond the immediate and see what have we gained and what have we lost in the long run.

While there are many aspects, we will discuss only a few of them. Like, what can be its implications for Imran Khan and PTI? What can be its impact on civil-military relations? What will it mean for the growth of democracy? And what will it make out of Nawaz Sharif in its wake?

Though his supporters won’t agree, the Nov 1 turn may prove to be the beginning of the end for Imran Khan as we know him. This doesn’t mean that we will be experiencing some big changes from today onward. But it is certain that the failure of his last effort to overthrow Nawaz Sharif is going to affect the way his supporters viewed things up till now.

A leader loses his popularity and charisma if he raises public expectations time and again but then fails every time. Though IK has done it in the past too, the failings were either not so pronounced or they were camouflaged in some rhetoric or the other. IK’s Nov 1 address to his supporters in Bani Gala though also was an effort in that direction, it will soon be obvious to his followers that it was nothing more than an exercise in face-saving when the party failed to either to mobilise the masses or to inject the required zeal among the mobilised ones to reach their destination i.e. Islamabad.

IK will have to pay the price for his stubborn attitude and terming everyone an agent of the status quo who tried to warn him of the dangers in the course that he had adopted. Or those who simply disagreed with his brand of politics which mostly revolved around non-stop agitation and defiance of the system which he used as protective cover whenever he was responded in the same coin.

This needs no elaboration that the days of dharna politics are finally over. Few will pay heed to him from now on if he ever tried to call people to converge on the capital for that ‘final push’. And he will have to live with this bitter reality and carry this cross forever.

The impact of IK’s failure on the ongoing civil-military tug of war can hardly be overemphasised. Both the civil-military and Imran-Nawaz tussles were interlinked and dependent on each other. Relief on one front was bound to make things easy for Nawaz Sharif on the other. And that is what is going to happen after the fizzling out of the PTI’s threat of taking over the capital by force.

Now, when Nawaz Sharif will be able to give full attention to his relationship with the army establishment, he will better be equipped to deal with this problem. He won’t have to look over his shoulder while fighting one opponent in front of him in the battlefield – as there was this apprehension – whether right or wrong – that he was involved in a two-pronged war.

But this is just one aspect of it. Nawaz Sharif will now be free of his biggest fear, i.e. army’s intervention. Army could have only intervened were IK able to create a nasty situation on streets that could justify its stepping in. That threat will be no more. Hence, Nawaz Sharif getting a relatively free hand to diffuse the situation on this front.

Going a step further and taking into account Raheel Sharif’s retirement by the end of November, this will mean much more than bringing a temporary relief to Nawaz Sharif. This is generally believed that it is the PM who has started the quarrel with the army at a very critical time. By doing so he wanted to; a) have an upper hand in internal and external policy-making, and b) to set the stage for a dominant civilian role after the retirement of the present army chief.

He deliberately picked an issue for creating tension with the military establishment which has greater global sensitivity and which made international community his supporter by default. This is the situation in which Nawaz Sharif is going to nominate a new army chief and sit with him across the table; no formidable political challenge and the objective of asserting authority very clear in mind. Pity political differences aside, almost all of the political parties – minus PTI and may be PML (Q) – support the principle of civilian dominance in decision-making process.

As to what will become of Nawaz Sharif, nothing can be more appropriate than the remarks of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari that IK was making him more powerful. He has done it.

Those who are still underestimating Nawaz Sharif and are downplaying his potential to run amok and become his dictatorial self, should just analyze the situation in which he decided to pick a bone with the military and the ‘issue’ that he chose for this purpose.

Democracy may get a boost but that can’t become permanent by itself. Good, delivering governance is the basic requirement for it to take root at social level. And the first things that are needed in this regard are that political leaders representing this system bridle their dictatorial tendencies, say farewell to politics of patronage and to corruption.

And that is only possible with the presence of a strong opposition which unfortunately Imran Khan has razed to the ground first by playing agitational politics for three and a half years and ultimately failing, and then by stigmatising the whole political leadership and opposition in his bid to prove that he was the only genuine opposition.