The Friday Times: Najam Sethi’s Editorial
Imran Khan has taken fifteen years to capture the imagination of the young and alienated as demonstrated in the huge public rally by the PTI in Lahore last Sunday. Two new factors are responsible for the sudden spotlight on Imran. The negative factor attaches to all the incumbents – PPP, PMLN, PMLQ, ANP, MQM – who have singly and collectively dashed the passionate hopes of a new generation of Pakistanis for progressive “change”. This is that chunk of society that voted General Pervez Musharraf and his PMLQ out of power and compelled the restoration of CJP Iftikhar Chaudhry to office. The collective failure of these parties and their leaders to improve the human condition of Pakistanis is reflected in the abysmal standing of Pakistan in the recent findings of the Legatum Prosperity Index 2011 and Gallup Pakistan.
Legatum measures prosperity as a function of both income and wellbeing for 110 countries. Pakistan has slid from 85th position in 2008 to 107 position in 2011 as a direct consequence of low economic growth (96th), failing education (105th) and extraordinary instability and insecurity (109th). Gallup notes that the standing of all politicians, generals and judges is either negative or significantly decreasing and only Imran Khan’s is rising because he is increasingly perceived as a last, desperate “symbol” of hope.
The positive factor is related to the rise of an aggressive new media that is passionate about Pakistan’s destiny as a sovereign and “ghairatmand” nation-state. This media has bought into Imran Khan’s neo-nationalist, anti-American rhetoric externally and dogged crusade against corruption internally. Consequently, it is unabashedly “pro-Imran”. This is supplemented by the rapid growth of social media activists (now over 20 million) via Email, SMS, MSN, Facebook, Twitter, etc, whose power and outreach was first demonstrated in forging a protest movement of young, urban lawyers and civil society activists in favour of the deposed CJP from 2007-2008 and now in canvassing and galvanizing support for Imran’s rally in Lahore. Of course, the “18-30 year old” demographic youth bulge that accounts for nearly 30% of Pakistan’s population represents a strong tail-wind for Imran.
But if one sparrow doth not a summer make, neither can a solitary and spontaneously generated rally-concert in Lahore substitute for an organically rooted and politically organised national party with traditional voter outreach like the PPP or PMLN. So, realistically speaking, what are Imran’s political prospects?
Imran’s new book A Personal History paints him as a man of destiny. “Pir Ji of Sahiwal” told him he would make his mother’s name a household name. “Baba Chala” insisted that his “retirement” was an illusion. Both have turned out to be true. So he has come to believe in himself like a Messiah. That is a powerful incentive to keep going in search of his destiny. That is also why he didn’t throw up his hands in despair after he stood for elections from seven constituencies in 1997 and didn’t win from any of them. In 2002, he won a seat, thanks to General Musharraf’s personal intervention, but he boycotted the 2008 polls because the crowds were rooting for Benazir and Nawaz. Now his destiny has kicked in after the PPP and PMLN have discredited themselves.
But this sense of destiny is also a measure of his weakness in being unable so far to build a mass-based democratic party in which decision-making is a shared responsibility and obligation. Imran is rigid, self-righteous, Manichean, belief-ridden, faith-bound and personally unaccountable. If he is predestined to rule as a Saviour, why labour over building a party organization or study the ropes of policy? That is why his criticisms are thunderous and his policy prescriptions innocently naïve, overtly contradictory or dangerously wayward.
Imran is concentrating on central and northern Punjab, the conservative heartland of Pakistan from whence the PMLN derives its strength. Consequently, he is appealing to the constituency that has historically nurtured and sustained the anti-India, Islamist nationalist narrative of the “Pakistan ideology” which is now in the grip of virulent anti-Americanism. Both narratives are the domain of the Pakistan military which has always exploited them for political leverage. The ground is slippery because the PMLN under Nawaz Sharif is trying to reinvent itself as an anti-establishment party (peace with India, no arms race, civilian control over the military, scrutiny of defense budgets, etc).
Much the same sort of contradiction manifests itself in party formation. All the “rejects” from the PPP, PMLN and PMLQ are lining up to join the PTI in Punjab and KP. They come from the same socio-economic stock as those in the parent parties. How can they be expected to help Imran bring about radical output with their counter-radical input?
The mood in the country is anti-establishment and anti-politician. It would be a tragedy for Pakistan’s fledgling civil society and democracy if he were to win the polls by being both pro-establishment and anti-politician.