Imran’s dangerous game

Author: Daily Times

For Imran Khan, it was not enough to see Nawaz #Go. For, seemingly, he will not rest until the former Prime Minister never returns to Pakistan’s political scene. Yet to get there — he is playing an extremely dangerous game. One that will be detrimental to the long-term democratic health of this country.

At a time when his government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is appealing against the acquittal of those linked to the murder of Mahsal Khan, the PTI chief has chosen to raise the matter of the ruling party’s amendment to the Khatm-i-Nabuwwat oath in the Elections Act 2017. Yet had Mr Khan sincerely been concerned about the status of the inquiry into this misstep he ought to have brought this up before Parliament. Instead of playing to the very cheapest of seats. Especially considering that he has yet to provide evidence to support his contention that all the King’s men had deliberately done the unneedful “to please a big lobby that is sitting abroad”.

But what Khan does not appear to realise is that by implying all of this he has effectively given the PTI nod of approval to the sit-in by the religious right that held the federal capital hostage towards the end of last year and demanded nothing less than the Law minister’s head on a stick for the ‘clerical error’. All of which precipitated soft intervention by the military establishment.

Such incendiary comments simply fuel his adversaries’ taunts of ‘Taliban Khan’ more than his recent wedding reinvention ever could. And we are beginning to think that these are not without merit. After all, such perilous political opportunism casts new light upon the KP government’s tentative budget (for this year) of Rs277 million for the Darul Uloom Haqqania religious seminary run by the ‘Father of the Taliban’ Sami ul Haq; which has seen Mullah Omar and Jalaluddin Haqqani pass through its doors. Back in 2016, the madrassa was accorded some Rs300 million by the provincial set-up under the banner of mainstreaming students.

This, in turn, raises important questions as to which master’s voice is he listening? There have long been rumours, some of these dating back to 2010, of Khan being in the pockets of certain institutions that may or may not wish to see democracy flourish here in this hard country. Indeed, Javed Hashmi this week placed the cat amongst the proverbial pigeons and other assorted idioms when he asserted that the PTI chief had first mentioned some four years ago the Supreme Court’s ‘plans’ to dissolve Parliament.

Sadly, from where we are sitting — it seems that the PTI chief is doing his best to help things along. And that will not do nicely.  *

Published in Daily Times, February 24th 2018.

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