Imran Khan on war path

PML-N is digging its own grave with its lack of interest in parliamentary politics

Imran Khan has decided to beard the PML-N’s lion in its den in Punjab. Despite rising temperatures Khan continues to pull the crowds. The PTI’s public meeting in Sialkot was as large as the earlier two gatherings and is now to be followed by a fourth one in Bahawalpur. Meanwhile the party continues with its sideshow of weekly protests outside the office of the Election Commission of Pakistan in Islamabad, demanding a new, more independent and powerful Election Commission. That hundreds of workers including women activists are forcing their way to the venue every Friday past concertina wire barriers and police barricades indicates the coming of age of the PTI jiyalas. The so called “burger class” is successfully going through its baptism of fire.

Imran Khan thrives on the lack of performance by the PML-N government. While it would be unjust to pass a verdict on the basis on one year’s performance, the large attendance at every meeting indicates the level of public frustration with the government’s performance. Among other things, the PML-N’s concept of development has failed to enthuse the general public. New roads and flyovers and introduction of metro buses or metro trains fail to capture the imagination of those suffering on a daily basis from unending power shortages, inflation and unemployment. What is more the PML-N has now to pay for some of its own pre-election hypes like breaking the begging bowl and bringing back black money hoarded in Swiss banks.

Imran Khan has dissociated himself from the phony calls for protests by PAT and PML-Q. He has also assured that his party’s ongoing campaign did not pose any threat to democracy. Also that he stands by the constitution. It is unusual, however, for a party with the third largest representation in the National Assembly, and which also rules a province, to take recourse to public protests to get its grievances redressed. While Imran Khan does not have any experience of parliamentary politics, he has a number of old timers like Javed Hashmi and Shah Mahmud Qureshi who could have made a better use of the forum to resolve the issues that roil the PTI. To a considerable extent, the PML-N is responsible for the trend to bypass the Parliament. A perception has taken shape that like the 1990s Nawaz Sharif continues to rely on informal processes of decision making which had in the past turned the cabinet and parliament virtually into nonentities. Unless the prime minister gives due importance to the two constitutional entities, more parliamentary components might be forced to take recourse to agitational politics, thus paving the way for mid-term polls.