In the age of the post-truth world, power politics serves as an instrument used to achieve political power via propaganda, abusive remarks and mudslinging regarding one’s opponents. In other words, power politics demands rhetorical comments based on morality, religious affiliations and other social tendencies to woo the public to rally around a popular political leader. In so doing, political leaders, who pretend like a messiah, often face difficulties to prove their innocence when the media hunts them for contradictions not only in their actions but also in their words.
Imran Khan’s case is similar to a political messiah who is bound to face public scrutiny in one way or another as audio leaks expose his private life to larger national and international media. Another reason why Khan fails to cope with the current situation is that he has shown himself in a way that often becomes difficult for him to stand up to political intrigues.
Moreover, the public is very sensitive to Khan and his character. They think that he has changed himself as he is no longer a playboy. Khan has also aggravated the situation as he plays to the tunes of the public by showing himself as a religious man, incorruptible and pious. To cater to the anti-women sentiments of the general public of Pakistan, Khan has remarked that men are not robots for they could not resist temptations when women are dressed in poor manners.
Though audio leaks are a personal matter of Khan, it is, however, important to mention that Khan’s actions are contrary to what he talks about in front of millions.
Instead of fighting a lost war, Khan must change his attitude and correct his way forward by coming back to parliament and negotiating with the government on political platforms.
He is being exposed every other day via leaks, stories of financial mishandling and corrupt practices in which his family are involved but he is not showing any humility.
Populist figures always try to shroud their personal and administrative errors in hysterical stories so that they can neutralize public anger. Khan seems to have chosen this way for he is not being humbled by his mistakes. Instead, he is trying to tell the public that he has sold his watches. In trying to paint himself as a good Muslim, Khan is making political blunders such as he pretends that it is not the corruption, mismanaged governance and other administrative errors for which he had been removed from office.
Blinded by power politics, Khan is on the way to dissolving the assemblies of Punjab and KPK respectively. Having failed to convince the power centres of the country via his long march, Khan is hurting himself. Another reason why Khan is doing this is that he wants to shift the focus of the public away from himself to the government as he failed to get the date of the elections.
Conclusively, Khan is at a crossroads as the more he seems belligerent, the more he is exposed. Instead of fighting a lost war, Khan must change his attitude, say sorry to the public and correct his way forward by coming back to parliament and negotiating with the government on political platforms. Otherwise, raising the political temperature would hurt Khan more than anyone else as he has made more enemies – outnumbering his friends. Populist politics is, thus, dangerous because it isolates politics from morality which is the core principle of governance.
The writer is a freelance columnist. He can be reached at [email protected]