Like many Pakistanis, I admire Imran Khan and his sincerity. But supporting him politically is a different matter. He and his party - Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) - have some serious soul searching to do before people give it their political support.
Imran Khan is one of the few principled politicians we have. There is no doubt that he truly cares about the country. His bold stance on May 12 and his consistent support for the restoration of the judiciary was unmatched by any other prominent politician. His cancer hospital and the projects he has started in the field of education have been praised even by many of his critics.
Someone like myself, who is dissatisfied with the politics and corruption of the leading parties, is naturally attracted to Imran Khan who talks about principles and accountability. However, as much as I like Imran for his honesty and devotion to the country, I have some concerns about him and can not help agreeing with Shafqat Mahmood’s statement that Imran never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Being politically inclined, I have even considered joining PTI at times, but reservations about his politics prevent me from doing so.
Imran Khan has been in politics for 13 years, and this is a long enough period to develop the party into a vibrant, democratic entity. Unfortunately, PTI still comes across more like an Imran Khan fan club rather than a democratic political party. For the most part, there is an absence of grass roots forums that meet regularly where any party member can raise issues and be heard, and the party line almost completely comes from the top.
Secondly, Imran does not realize that politics requires an appropriate mix of idealism and pragmatism and confuses this balancing act with opportunism. If he wants to serve the people of Pakistan by coming into power, then his decisions should be geared towards that goal. He had an excellent opportunity to launch himself when Nawaz Sharif offered him 20 odd seats in 1997 and again when Musharraf was willing to help him become the prime minister. Instead of spurning these offers, he should have taken a few ministries and worked hard on demonstrating through performance that he was someone who could truly deliver if given a chance. This could have provided him with the impetus needed to launch PTI into a force capable of getting elected into power on its own and then implement its reform agenda.
This unwillingness to balance idealism and pragmatism also creates doubts about his ability to deliver even if he came into power some day. It makes one wonder whether he would really take a practical approach towards addressing the country’s problems.
On top of all this, Imran Khan has a very confused stance on the Taliban where he still falls well short of fully condemning them.
He has been very consistently and forcefully bashing the Americans in recent years but the same kind of condemnation for the Taliban has not been forthcoming. This sharp contrast, when the Taliban have killed many more Pakistanis than the American drones, and when they are directly trying to destroy the state structure to establish their own rule, is hard to understand. It has taken some strong criticism for Imran Khan to finally make a few “too little too late” statements criticizing the Taliban, whereas what one expects from a good leader is the ability to clearly identify and point out a problem well ahead of time.
His stance on the current situation in Swat has again left a lot to be desired. He first vehemently opposed the military operation but did not explain what the government should do when the Taliban break a peace agreement and keep on expanding into neighbouring districts as they blatantly did after the Swat deal. Only after coming under regular fire has he finally accepted that a military operation can also be an option. He rightly says that bombings should be avoided and the operation should be carefully targeted, but the national debate could have been more focused on discussing how military action can be carried out in a way that minimizes civilian suffering if he and others had not been creating confusion by insisting that there should never be an operation.
In yet another example of muddled thinking, he now argues that before sending the army, a group of politicians should have been allowed to go and try to convince the Taliban to abide by the Swat peace deal. This makes one wonder why he did not publically propose this in the days leading up to the operation and what he is trying to accomplish by undermining the military’s efforts now that the time for this idea has clearly passed.
I really admire Imran Khan for his sincerity, but these are some of the serious issues that he and his party have to come to grips with, before PTI can make serious headway in realizing its full potential.
Scope of Political Marketing
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Political Marketing is being used and implemented with different names and different shapes since centuries. In 1950 Political Marketing was defined as a separate subject please sees history of Political Marketing for reference and details.
Still this subject is in developing phase and need to do a lot to formally recognize Political Marketing as separate subject. In my point of view Political Marketing is highly significant in all countries especially in democrat governments and more especially to developed countries. Political Marketing is essential for political parties, leaders, government and as well as for general public. Political Marketing brings stability in political culture of a country that in return brings prosperity in national economy at root and gross level. Without Political Marketing or misuse of Political Marketing it is really intricate to better understand public needs and it is so intricate to create and develop good governance in a society.
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To better understand the scope of Political Marketing I would like to quote two examples. 1st for the country where Political Marketing is being implement since many years and in contrast to this the another country where Political culture is not developed yet in parties as well as political leaders are not aware about Political Marketing.
On 1st hand I will like to quote USA. Where we can see very clear that Americans are implementing Political Marketing since many years in America, before elections the candidates create and develop a philosophy for their election campaign. So they are clear about what they are communicating in their dialogue. At all level their philosophy remains same, their goals, mission and objective does not change, audience to audience and place to place.
What ever they communicate for coalition parties or public, in New York or in any other state, the theme of their communication at all level remains same because they are well prepared, we can’t find any contradiction in their speeches, it builds harmony and trust in public. As a result we can see that in America normally election forecasting is done before elections by survey and pools and election result proofs those predictions.
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On other hand I would like to quote an example of a developing country where political culture is not as developed yet. We can see that in Pakistan there is political instability, political leaders in Pakistan are not well aware about the importance of Political Marketing due to lack of knowledge. There is no research, no philosophy and no proper developed campaign. One leader is talking and communicating other things compare to other leader of same party, even we can notice very clearly that same leader is communicating in different way with different theme and objective on different occasions and at different territories. Its due to lack of research, lack of proper philosophy and agenda and without preparation of any centralized campaign. As a result public don’t believe their promises and other parties get advantage of their contradictions, however we can see instability, lack of trust inside party and no clear vision.
If we summarize all discussion and keep in mind both examples its clear that without research, developed philosophy and centralized political marketing and election campaign and theme it is impossible to build public trust and harmony at national level. we must give a direction to political activities to get good results for a better future.
For the reason our organization, political marketing services slogan is “VOTE FOR TOMORROW” that describes well all functions of political marketing at all levels, government, political parties, leaders and for public.
Article written by Mr. Aftab Hussain
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