Of late, Pakistan has been in the grip of long marches. One of the marches has been organized by Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf, led by Imran Kahn and the other by Pakistan Awami Tehreek, PAT, led by Tahir ul Qadri. Supporters of both parties have already reached Islamabad and the capital city has become the focus of this unfolding political drama. Contrary to tall claims of canvassing a large number of supporters, Imran Khan has not been able to live up to those tall promises. The PTI Chief made a speech last evening, which was earlier billed as the speech of a lifetime. But even before he began his speech, it was obvious that he had forced himself and his party into a corner. The party could not mobilize a large crowd for his journey from Lahore neither enough protesters in support of his mission to oust the Nawaz Sharif led Government.
The media has given undeserved coverage to this spectacle and made it look bigger than it actually is. Infact Imran Khan and his party will become a victim of their own over-ambition. There was not much substance in Imran Khans speech. He has travelled a long way from those early days of the mid 90s when he took a plunge in active politics. His party failed to make any impression at the hustings as all these years, but found some vigor in the last years general election. Though his party did not do as well as the hype created around it, Imran Khan should have been happy with getting so many seats in the National Assembly. As the main opposition party, PTI had a real chance of taking on the Nawaz Sharif Govt on the various promises it made but failed to deliver. For example, his Govt has failed big time on its promise of improving the power situation in Pakistan. The country has seen severe power shortages and it is not likely to improve any time soon. As a politician and leader of the main opposition party, Imran Khan could play on these weaknesses of the Govt and actually galvanize common people in his favor. But far from it, he has chosen the path of confrontation and street agitation. No doubt protest is a genuine democratic means, but there has to be a method behind it. Imran Khans concerns about electoral reforms in Pakistan are well taken, but given that he is a part of the system now, he needs to fight within the system to reform it. He is still lured by the romance of activism.
In his speech, he tried to obfuscate and confuse to come out of the embarrassing situation that he finds himself in. The PTI leader called for, what he called civil disobedience movement, by appealing people to not pay taxes and bills. He also said the Govt has a few days to secure the Prime Ministers resignation or else he will not be responsible for party activists attempting to physically remove Mr Sharif from Prime Minister House. That surely is irresponsible behaviour from Imran Khan.
It is a sad and unfortunate turn of events for a party which secured a sizeable number of seats in the general elections in Pakistan last year. Imran Khan and his party would do better to take lessons from Aam Aadmi Paryy in India , which also pursued a suicidal path of agitational politics even after forming its Govt in Delhi.
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