Will Imran Khan take the bait?
There is a tendency among those who do not hope to win a popular mandate to look for ideological justifications for opposing democracy or the electoral process. The TTP has spurned offers made to it to drop arms and join the mainstream because it had seen the unenviable performance of the religious parties in elections. Tahirul Qadri who got elected in 2002 remained an ineffective one-man party in the NA and decided to resign. He now wants revolution because his party can’t win elections. There are also individuals in mainstream political parties who are unlikely to win any elections. They too tend to support movements and struggles instead of participation in polls.
Imran Khan faces a dilemma. The PTI made a breakthrough in last year’s elections, emerging as the third major party in NA and forming government in KP. While many thought this was a big achievement, Imran Khan was unhappy with the results. In first-past-the-post voting system the overall popularity of a party is sometime not translated exactly in the numbers of party deputies. In countries like Pakistan electoral malpractices also lead to distortions in the system. How much of Imran Khan’s expectation were realistic, whether the weaknesses in the polling system led to under-representation of the PAT or Imran Khan was defeated through a conspiracy, is likely to remain a matter of debate.
Imran Khan’s threat to dissolve the KP assembly if his grievances were not removed led to an uproar in KP Assembly where opposition members staged a walkout. Unlike Qadri, Imran Khan has stakes in the system. He heads a party which may win the next general elections. The PTI has done well to join the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms. Imran Khan is within his right to keep pressure on the government as an opposition leader. One hopes, however, that he would not barter away his political future by resorting to total confrontation which could lead to the collapse of the system. What is doable at present is reform rather than revolution.
