Daily Times

Between October 28-30, the Pakistani nation was treated to a rare succession of rancorous public speeches by the leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to make a popular, rather a mobbish, charivari. A fledging yet in the national political menagerie, Imran Khan’s PTI has grown in plumage and winged power to fly with the seniors in the bird odyssey.

Imran, like Altaf Bhai of the MQM, is the élan vital, in truth, the very existence of his party. However, the only difference between the two contemporaries is that while Imran remains the sole captain of his ship, the MQM has a remarkably well-integrated structure. The great bulk — in effect the whole body of its workers — may well be likened to fidayeen (zealots) ready to sacrifice everything — life itself — at the command of their leader.

As for the Muslim League, it is the senior-most and a constant factor in national politics with such variations of name and style as may be necessitated by the change of top leadership.

Conspicuously missing was the ruling party of the day, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which chose to leave its part of the show to the MQM. Even as an expedient tactical move it did project a rather dented image of the PPP in Karachi — its principal turf and stronghold. The MQM’s Karachi show was more like a parade with the audience remarkably responsive to the highs and lows of the commander’s address.

To Shahbaz Sharif’s ‘Go Zardari Go’, Altaf Hussain’s response in his rambling telephonic rhyming rejoinder was ‘No Sharif No’. He went on to condemn the use of improper and offensive language used by the Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif for a democratically elected president.

Back in the 1990s Altaf Hussain spoke as forcefully against Benazir’s PPP government and in support of Nawaz Sharif from the selfsame venue around the Mazar-e-Quaid (Jinnah’s mausoleum).

“It’s magic,” admitted a bewildered Nawaz Sharif after the show. That Altaf Hussain’s spell and hold over his party should have endured for over a quarter of a century since the founding of the MQM remains without parallel in the annals of democracy anywhere in the world.

As for Shahbaz Sharif, the man who set the ball rolling in the anti-Zardari drive as part of the election campaign, he had been on the wrong foot both in his overwrought body language and the choice of bad language at the cost of his status as provincial chief and a senior leader of the incumbent PML-N. In the uncontrolled onrush of oratory, he risked the Sharif brothers’ popularity graph dropping from the two top slots to a considerably lower one.

Imran Khan stands as the unquestioned winner. His Lahore rally was rated as by far the largest one after Benazir Bhutto’s on the occasion of her triumphant return in 1986 from exile under the tyrant, General Ziaul Haq.

Not to speak of utterly bewildering the Sharif brothers, the bustling crowd should have surprised Imran Khan himself. It did put to shame Senator Pervaiz Rashid of the PML-N predicting a 50-60,000-strong rally. Music and bhangra were used moderately as force multipliers.

Imran Khan used his declamatory skills as best as he could. His body language, however, seemed lacking the maturity and the expertise of an orator like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The sense of conviction, even by way of playacting, seemed to be lacking.

Elections still being way ahead, Imran would do well to brush up his skills as a mass orator, tempering eloquence with sobriety and the strength of conviction. Above all, he will have to focus on the government of the day under President Zardari side by side with his tirade against the PML-N.

Pakistan’s politics being traditionally a domain of uncertainty, is easily more so now than ever. Caught in the dragnet of internal and external security challenges aggravated by a sinking economy, a grave law and order situation and a civil-military disconnect, it is hard to know what sort of an adversity might be knocking at our door next and how soon.

The kind of Lahore charivari, apart from its instant dramatic impact, would not be half as dramatic when its economic cost and damages are worked out together with the hard labour and man-hours involved in making the show a success.

The writer is a retired brigadier and can be reached at brigsiddiqi@yahoo.co.uk