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.
Shahbaz is a typical example of the clued out people who support IK. How do you know that the rest of us are not doing anything. I was a strong activist during the lawyers’ movement. And who says that the way to make a difference is to set up a political party from scratch? That is bordering on the stupid in itself if you ask me.
There are examples of politicians who have made a far bigger difference than Imran by being a part of existing political parties—Aitzaz Ahsan, for example.
Political parties are not bastions of character in any country but if good and intelligent people join them, they can make a difference. That is the difference between someone like Obama, who joined the democratic party and rose to PM and someone like Nader, who will remain on the fringes. Imran will remain on the fringes. Why didn’t he take the office of sports minister when Nawaz offered it to him in the late nineties. That was his area of expertise, he could have showed the people a difference—but no, he is the one who just sits back and criticizes. Fawad is right—he has clutched defeat from the jaws of victory. Even after supporting the lawyers’ movement correctly, he ended up on the wrong side by claiming that panchayat and jirga decisions are the way to go. Wake up Shahbaz.
It is very easy to criticize Imran while sitting in our drawing rooms, but have you guys ever tried to do something practical yourselves. Organizing a political party from scratch in Pakistan (where political leadership is hereditary instead of being based on merit) is no small achievement. Please do let me know if you could present a alternative to Imran Khan when it comes to principled and sincere leadership. As far as PTI being a ‘one man show’ is concerned, may be we – the people – need to step up and support Imran and make PTI a popular mainstream political party. If you don’t like PTI’s policies, step up and get involved. But for God sakes stop criticizing the this guy if you are unwilling to support him.
I agree with this analysis.
One of the commenters is absolutely correct in saying that the problem of Imran Khan’s politics goes well beyond “not being pragmatic”.
He started with a lot of goodwill from the urban, young and educated who saw in him somebody with a strong reputation for honesty, successful philanthropy and leadership who could provide a middle class alternative to Pakistan’s feudal and industrial political machine. His high point was his leadership in the struggle for the restoration for the judiciary when he was able to stitch together a natural alliance of progressive young urban people who found him appealing in a cause that they could identify with. But yet again Imran managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by boycotting the elections against the sane advice of every mainstream politician.
However, even after the election boycott debacle (which could be excused as principled) Imran did not understand the source of his own appeal and his natural support base.
He alienated all those people who had strongly hoped for fresh, focused progressive leadership from him by lurching unconvincingly from one irrelevant issue to another. One day he is railing against MQM and marching on Karachi, the next day he is publishing articles about the glory days of Muslims and complaining about brown sahibs, the third day he is defending sharia imposition by the sword and ranting against the military operation and America. The last straw has been his embrace of a despicable, dishonest and thuggish party like the Jamaat-e-Islami (which amazingly enough had physically thrashed him at Punjab University during the lawyer’s movement). It is increasingly clear that Imran Khan is a confused individual and politician. After 13 years his party remains an erratic, inconsistent and ineffective one man show. He is temperamentally unsuited for political leadership.
Frankly, Imran’s Khan’s personal struggles going from being the world’s foremost playboy to born again fundamentalism seem to have left him a bit unhinged. He no longer seems to know or able to articulate what he stands for: Is he for Talibanization and sharia rule or for something else? We seem to be able to tell all the things Imran Khan is against but its not clear what he is for other than impractical idiocies like dialogue with Taliban barbarians even in the face of transparent violations of agreements, an expansionist agenda and suicide bombings in Pakistan’s heartland. The good news is that Imran Khan’s politics is most likely finished. Hopefully he can now concentrate on his philanthropy where he has an excellent track record.
Not a bad post by Aqil, but I have never been impressed with IK’s politics. His cricket and SKMT notwithstanding, I have met him three times and been singularly unimpressed with both his political views and the manner in which his party is run. For me, the single most important reason why IK cannot be successful in politics is because the people who have joined him/support him politically are among the most politically unaware. This has nothing to do with not being a crook or a pragmatist, it just has to do with not understanding politics.
There are examples of politicians in Pakistan who have been upright and yet successful—Jinnah being the foremost. But there are also others like Aitzaz Ahsan, Afzal Khan Lala, and I can name other less known ones too—who are not corrupt, respected and have made a difference in different ways. (Success does not only have to be gauged by making it to the PM slot—which is IK’s egotistical hangup and why he cannot seem to take a conciliatory stand with anyone).
Reading some of the earlier posts, I can see no parallel with Asghar Khan. Asghar Khan was more upright, had his mind in the right place (no taliban apologism) and was also far more influential in Pakistan’s politics than IK. Had Asghar Khan had the benefit of a free media that IK has today, he would have been far more successful than IK. The comparison with Ralph Nader is more valid, but Nader is more upright, has no disparity between his personal life and his politics (unlike IK), but lacks political pragmatism, like IK.
Finally, I don’t think he is leaning on JI for desperate support or out of opportunism—I think he is leaning on JI because that is how he feels–at least that is the impression I got in my conversations with him. He has always been supportive of the Hamid Guls of our world, very dicey on women’s rights and suffers a grave gora complex—hence the constant west-bashing but completely different approach in his personal life.
I remember Nusrat Fateh Ali did so many fund raising concerts for him, but he did not even show up to his funeral. On the other hand, Diana came once for SKMT and he went running for her funeral. There are so many examples—while he claims that we should not be getting aid from the west, his children are being brought up on Goldsmith money (he is not even taking on the responsibility of funding his kids)—they go to elite schools in London and he critiques the English medium in Pakistan. There is no balance and tons of disparity between what he preaches and how his family lives. While he bashes liberals, his immediate family lives a lifestyle that even Pakistani liberals would have a problem with.
In sum, I don’t see PTI a viable alternative as long as IK heads it and it is supported by a fan club in love with him but having no insight on Pakistan’s historical politics.