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.
@vigilant:
It doesn’t even matter whether Mush offered Imran the PM slot or just a couple of ministries; the bottom line is that in either case he had a major opportunity which he failed to grab.
Mush himself says that IK could have been his PM if he hadn’t been very rigid. His whole claim to legitimacy was that he was bringing a better alternative to the corrupt politics of BB and NS; so having IK around could have helped with that argument.
But as I said in the original post, this is not the only problem; his thinking on Taliban is clearly flawed. And I didn’t even touch upon the misogynistic tendencies.
@Vigilant:
So you could only remember his going to Islamabad airport at 2 am in his 30plus yrs of affiliation with PPP…….What a shame on such party!!!!!!! And by the way Is it Aitezaz alone who helped restoration of CJ? I thought it was a collective effort and especially in last few days by PML N. Javed Jabbar resigned in protest and both Aitezaz and Javed Jabbar are well known for their expertise in their respective fields ( law and advetirsing).same is true for Ayaz Amir. None of these needed any introduction through any of the political parties.You did not answer why all these people ( Javed jabbar, Shafqat Mahmood , Iqbal haider) left the PPP . Simply bcz they did not have any confidence in it.
I fully understand this philophy of “winning ticket” and “smartness” .( BTW I think you must acknowledge Zardari as smartest of all!!!!!!)It has been proven wrong bcz of the mere fact that this smartness earns you a seat in assembly but does not give any benefit to the people.After all there is some reason for the perpetual mess we are in. Why this smartness has not translated into a properous pakistan so far?
Obama’ s example is totally out of context ( first of all he is not a revolutionary as many think and then he could easily achieve his goals by joining existing political parties so why bother)and so is the fact that PTI does not want to work in this system. PTI is working within this system and the change they are talking about is the implimentation of the constitution in its letter and spirit.Just establishing a new party within the same system does not mean we are rejecting the whole system…..
PS: The reason I did not mention names of Afzal lala and Usman Tarakai bcz what they did was a personal act of exellence which has nothing to do with their party affiliations.On the other hand we were discussing how different people influenced their party policies and performance and how it benefited the country on a larger scale.
@ wsd
I notice you only commented on two of the four politicians I mentioned. But even so, Aitzaz has made positive contributions as both Interior Minister and Law Minister, when he served in those capacities. There are stories of him even doing things like making surprise visits to Islamabad Airport at 2 am to ensure that the FIA was doing a proper job when he was Interior Minister. Similarly, Javed Jabbar also made contributions, as did Iqbal Haider and I can even say that Ayaz Amir made a contribution when he stood up and defied Nizam e Adl.
The trouble with you PTI folks is that you don’t understand that politics is not a zero-sum game but a slow process in a democracy and for every two steps forward you do take one back, but that is how it works even in established democracies. Obama might want to change a lot but he is restrained by those within his own party and severely by those on the Republican side, but with whom he must work together. All PTI people that I speak to speak of “radical surgery”, “trouble with the status quo”, “everything is rotten”—they are just not willing to work within the system.
But the most critical point, which you fail to understand, is that by joining the PPP, Aitzaz and Javed Jabbar were given a shot at politics. Had they not gotten their respective party tickets, you and I would not even know who they were and Aitzaz would not have had the political experience to play the crucial part he played in the lawyers’ movement. Let’s face it, Imran ki to bus ki baat nahin thi CJ ko restore karana. He may have been on the right side in that divide but he couldn’t have gotten the job done–you needed someone like Aitzaz.
You need a winning ticket to enter politics. Smart people realize that which is why they don’t waste their time with PTI.
@Vigilant:
Thanks for bringing up these interesting points. Perhaps you did not read my question carefully; especially the last line so let me paste it here again to clarify the point.
“I would like to know who are those
I don’t know vigilant, maybe Imran Khan as Premier would have placated the Taliban, the JI, AQ, JUI-F, JUI-S, JUP, Saudi Arabia, and other such scum…
;)