Daily Times

Former cricket team mates of Imran Khan told me that he would tell them that they will win a tournament despite not having a chance. Indeed, the team would end up losing. In other words, Imran Khan has always lived in an imaginary world where he always wins and cannot tolerate a loss.

His team mates also told me another interesting thing that Imran would pad up for batting while the openers would be batting despite being a middle order batsman. This suggested Imran did not trust anyone else but himself to take Pakistan to victory. He is not a team player but an individual performer and he has carried this attitude in politics as well.

It is this focus on his own person that proved detrimental in developing a viable tanzeem of the PTI even after twenty years of the party’s existence. SKMH and Namal became successful because the governing bodies told Imran Khan they would not tolerate his interference in management and operations.

Imran could have employed a similar formula in PTI but failed to do so. Now he is trying this formula by relinquishing control to Jahangir Khan Tareen but Tareen is just as ignorant about politics as Imran Khan himself.

In a recent Facebook post, Imran Khan claims his party—that we now call PTI-L (lotas)—hasa national footprint. But is that really the case? PTI swept Karachi by surprise in the 2013 general elections.

The city has since refused to vote for PTI-L and handed it a humiliating defeat in the by-elections and local government elections. In interior Sindh, PTI-L has no presence.

Dr Arif Alvi and Asad Umar have been given the responsibility to develop Sindh but their elitist attitude and condescending behaviour have alienated workers instead of energising them.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pervez Khattak declared PTI stands for Pakhtun Tehreeke-e-Insaf which suggests he wants the party to become the next ANP which never had much support throughout the province.

For Khattak, only the northern districts matter which is his home constituency. For his own personal benefit, he sacrificed the national stature of PTI. It is highly likely KP will not give Imran the support it did in 2013. Losses in by-election and the decline in the vote bank in local government is an indication of this. Only 9 out of 24 districts have the party’s government.

In Balochistan, PTI-L has zero presence and one person that they expected to win Sardar Yar Mohammad Rind lost miserably in by-elections.

Hence, Imran Khan and his investors are totally relying on Punjab. The petition against CM Shahbaz was an effort to create space for that. But the Lahore High Court threw out the petition.

Imran Khan’s public statements during the lockdown that he does not care for Punjab voters severely damaged his support in the province. The other problem is that they do not have any notable person in north and central Punjab who can win elections. Ch. Nisar could be a good option if he really decides to work under Imran Khan which is a very long shot.

He knows Imran Khan’s capabilities since Aitchison College days. Only one person who can maybe convince Nisar is Pervez Khattak because they were buddies in Aitchison and as political animals, they can understand one another’s quest for power.

However, if Pervez Khattak talked to Nisar then he may convince him to create another party where Nisar is the head and PK is the second in command. That would be interesting, but is still mere speculation.

The bottomline is that Imran Khan is living in a dream world. The only possibility to have a good showing is to abandon PTI-L and develop PTI. We still have time to develop PTI into a wining party but every passing week, the window is closing.

I find it amusing that in every article I say PTI will win and PTI-L will lose but Imran Khan’s cult following still gets angry at this. I do not know whether they do not want PTI to win or that they think Imran Khan is the whole party and all of us are unnecessary accessories like Naz Baloch.

Pakistani voters are not as dumb as many politicians make us believe. If there are free and fair elections they have the ability to make the right decision about who should carry their mandate. It is because of this fear that status quo political parties do not push for electoral reforms as that could loosen their grip on political parties.

Imran Khan, who is now fully on the side of the status quo, championed the cause of electoral reforms during the dharna of 2014 but lost interest in it as soon as it was over. There should be public pressure for reforms. Only then we can fix our politics and create space for new leadership to emerge.

Abdul Quayyum Khan Kundi is a former President of Pakistan chamber of commerce USA (PCC-USA) and member of central Tarbiyati council of PTI. He has authored three books including a work on Islamic political thought titled Islamic social contract

Published in Daily Times, July 21^st, 2017.