Written by: Mr. Inam Ul Haq Commentary by: Ch. Muhammad Natiq
There is nothing solid to yearn for a return of the PTI. One would have expected IK to transform – on assuming power – into a statesman after years of agitational politics and abusing all and sundry from the top of a container. That did not happen, is not happening and is not likely to happen.
Seeing the youth and the middle class firmly behind, his rhetoric is escalators, more divisive and dangerously polarising. National institutions like Judiciary and the Pakistan Army are subjected to seething and mostly uncalled-for criticism by Party cadre/sympathisers. And apart from symbolic one-liners, IK has mostly remained silent on this propaganda’s profane proliferation on social media. And that has forced a rethink among many, whose hearts beat with Pak. So, Very sincerely, in the interest of Pak and PTI, IK the second time around would be more of the same and his return would be ‘reinforcement of the failure’.
♦️ A quick glance over the PTI rule throws out a mixed bag. The Party fought Covid with tenacity and artfulness, saving the country from catastrophic consequences that befell neighbouring India. Its initiative of ‘Sehat Insaaf Card’ is enabling most have-nots get quality medical treatment.
♦️ It is unfair to put all blame for the recent eco fiascoes on the PDM, PTI squarely shares the blame. There was no diligent and coordinated teamwork by party-apparatchik to improve governance; chasing the corrupt remained an obsession with no pro-Pak outcomes and no results at all; precious time, which could be devoted to improving governance, was spent in useless filibustering; and there was too much bluster against all state institutions at some point, including Army, Judiciary, media, Election Commission, bureaucracy; and no effort was made to patch up and have a semblance of working relations with the opposition.
♦️ IK’s foreign policy threw relations with Saudi Arabia, the West and America in tail-spin, as there was too much unnecessary rhetoric directed at unseen demons. Politics under PTI was one of confrontation with no desire for reconciliation, the ask of our polarised landscape.
♦️ There is something diametrically different shaping up contemporary Pak’s political landscape. IK/PTI rides the wave of support by Pakistanis of all shades, unhappy with rule by ashhrafiyya – the elite, civil and military.
♦️ Winning elections and converting youthful bulge into votes are quite different things. One wonders how soon the Party forgot when ‘electives’ were delivered to them by the same ‘neutrals’. How the ‘neutrals’ cobbled together a workable coalition for them? How they were guided and mentored through various crises of their own making, and how the same ‘neutrals’ put their reputation online to go out of the way in helping the PTI run affairs of the state, for which it was not prepared and is not prepared.
