Daily Times

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s (PTI’s) strong showing at rallies across the country continued in Sargodha where Imran Khan addressed a large gathering on Friday. Despite concerns about crowd control and the fact that Sargodha is not a PTI stronghold, the turnout was considerable. PTI organisers razed the walls of the stadium before the rally to increase its capacity from 5,000, saying they would rebuild them later. This is the fifth rally the PTI has staged since its sit-in at D-Chowk in Islamabad virtually collapsed without achieving the maximalist demand of the prime minister’s resignation but gave the party a wider audience that continues to be drawn to Imran Khan’s rhetoric. The PTI’s predictable failure in Islamabad does not detract from its ability to gather crowds or how its message resonates with a certain section of the people.

While the phenomenon is not necessarily indicative of Imran Khan’s overall popularity, it illuminates the vote bank he has managed to make his base since 2011. Pakistan is one of the fastest urbanising countries in South Asia if not the world and has a growing middle class that yearns for upward social mobility. Disillusioned by the PPP’s regional and feudal politics and the big business, biradri (kinship) politics of the PML-N, this previously apolitical class formed the basis of the PTI’s election success. In Pakistan it is defined by social or religious conservatism and is vulnerable to urban legends and fiscal myths, and Imran appeals to them with ravings about restoring ‘Medina-style’ justice and independence from foreign financial aid. Only the MQM has such appeal among the urban middle class of Sindh, but there are also other reasons for its success. Much of Imran’s support dwindled after the disastrous sit-ins but he aims to make up the loss by taking his rallies into the heart of the PML-N’s territory, challenging the ruling party in the province that because of its size matters most. Almost 65 percent of Pakistan’s population resides in Punjab, and continuing what is effectively an election campaign shows how much importance Imran places on challenging the PML-N in its stronghold. His views have struck a chord among people in the province’s rapidly growing towns and cities. The strategy is predicated on the idea of forcing mid-term elections, meaning either Imran is party to privileged information or he is playing his cards too soon, because Nawaz Sharif’s more confident tone in recent days suggests that he is not going anywhere.

Whether the PTI can maintain this level of activity without jeopardising the seats it won in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) is doubtful. The latter province has been all but abandoned by the party in power, which faces opposition in the Assembly from many of its own parliamentarians who are not keen to throw away their election victories. This is one of the reasons Khan does not mention KP in his speeches, instead focusing on berating the federal and Punjab government. He would otherwise be hard pressed to explain why he lambasts government institutions for not paying electricity bills while his provincial ministers are accused of protecting electricity defaulters in KP, the province with the lowest bill collection rate. Other parties snipe at Khan about this but he adroitly manoeuvres around the question by making baseless allegations and half-baked arguments that are devoid of facts, such as claiming that electricity prices have increased by 80 percent in the last year or that he will end corruption in 100 days. These are populist statements that sit well with a largely uninformed crowd but do not address how the party intends to concretely solve these problems. The PTI is seemingly unaware of procedural difficulties in areas such as delimiting local government constituencies, which the Supreme Court recently adjudged to be the domain of the Election Commission. It is also not running on a platform of economic change, promoting free market policies that necessarily lead to corrupt practices, thereby driving a big hole in Imran Khan’s anti-corruption tirades. This is double-sided rhetoric because the party is beholden to the very political and economic system it is ostensibly trying to bring down. However, if Imran is to be brought back to reality, other political parties must begin appealing to the rising middle class that he has enchanted, because it is arguably the game changer in Pakistan’s electoral landscape. *