In the 2002 general elections, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chaiman Imran Khan contested from Swat (NA-29) where he lost to Qari Abdul Baees Siddiqui (65,808 votes to 6,060); from Lahore (NA-122) where he lost to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidate Sardar Ayaz Sadiq (37,531 votes to 18,638); and Mianwali (NA-71) where he beat Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) candidate Obaidullah Khan by a close margin (66,737 votes to 60,533). Media reports suggested that President Pervez Musharraf was instrumental in getting Imran Khan his seat with the help of state agencies.
In 2008, Khan boycotted the elections, only to emerge three years later as the establishment’s blue-eyed boy and part of a likely IJI or Combined Opposition Parties (COP) style coalition against the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the PML-N.
A high-profile and well connected journalist now a part of Khan’s party is reported to be the link between Imran’s party and the security establishment. Analysts have also opined that the recent PTI protests against US drone strikes will help Pakistan’s security establishment pressure the US into offering a better ‘deal’. Others have noted that a new coalition, like the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal in the Musharraf era, is apparently being manufactured in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province to scare the West.
History and politics:
The origins of PTI are sometimes traced back to former ISI chief Gen (r) Hamid Gul who is said to have persuaded the former skipper of Pakistan’s cricket team to venture into politics. The retired general denies any links to PTI.
Since his party was formed, Imran Khan has been changing his stance on several issues including Pervez Musharraf (who he had initially supported, especially in his controversial referendum), the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) (which he had implicated in the murder of PTI workers in Karachi) and the War on Terror.
During the lawyers’ movement, he was arrested and later released by the Musharraf regime. Khan was asked if he would quit the alliance with the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) since workers of its student wing turned him in. Imran denied being part of an alliance with the JI, despite being part of the All Pakistan Democratic Movement (APDM). However, his soft stance towards JI lost him the support of Pakistan’s progressive sections of the middle class.
In 2004 his statement that suicide bombings were a reaction to US occupation of Afghanistan and that there should be negotiations with Baitullah Mehsud did not go well with the security establishment.
Asked why his own party was dependant on one individual, he admitted there was a lack of high profile second tier leadership.
Recent developments:
On a recent trip to London, Imran Khan did the unthinkable. He restored ties with two of his greatest political foes – MQM chief Altaf Hussain and former president Pervez Musharraf – who he had been opposing bitterly for several years.
“There seems to be a plan to manufacture new constituencies and new alliances,” former Intelligence Bureau chief Shah Mahboob Alam told The Friday Times. “It seems that work is being done on two plans: a) to create two Saraiki and Hazara provinces, and b) to dent the PML-N vote bank as much as possible.”
Intelligence agencies have been promoting Imran Khan in PML-N’s constituencies in urban Punjab and Awami National Party’s (ANP) constituencies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
“Imran Khan even met a two-star general at his residence in Islamabad,” an intelligence official formerly on a monitoring duty told TFT.
Already being supported by a television network against the PPP government, Imran Khan’s protest against drone strikes; and his demand that NATO’s supplies through Pakistan be blocked will win him many fans in the GHQ. An old PTI member said it would be more appropriate if Imran had protested outside the GHQ instead of Peshawar.
The visit of Shah Mahmood Qureshi, arguably close to the establishment, to MQM headquarters, Nine Zero in Karachi, is also significant.
Conclusion:
While Imran Khan appears to be wavering in his political stance, his grassroots approach as a philanthropist who had built a cancer hospital was remarkable. But that might not necessarily work in politics.
In politics, there are compromises to be hatched and bargains to be made. At present, Imran Khan’s idealism is at variance with the imperatives of power politics. Imran’s call for a revolution and refusal to be a part of the current system might therefore not work. In doing what the establishment wants him to do, he might end up destabilising
democracy – something Pakistan cannot afford.
Ali Chishti is a writer based in Karachi. He can be reached at
akchishti@hotmail.com
