Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Speakers at a panel discussion on the incoming Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government said that the new regime would find it difficult to deliver its lofty promises of change, given the concessions it would have to make to the interest groups that it had come to power on the backs off.

They expressed these views at a seminar titled PTI’s Naya Pakistan – New Beginning or False Dawn? organised by the Awami Workers Party (AWP).

The speakers discussed the likely policy trajectory that would be taken by the PTI government in light of the party’s past performance and the recent election results. Around 200 participants, including students, political workers, journalists and panelists from twin cities attended the event.

While discussing on the occasion, AWP Punjab President Asim Sajjad Akhtar said that the PTI had come into power while branding itself a harbinger of change, but it had reproduced the system’s existing logic by using electables to come into power.

He said that the manner of PTI’s electoral victory had not left much to the imagination in terms of what groups or institutions it would empower.

Asim Sajjad Akhtar further said that it was likely that the PTI would continue the neoliberal economic policies of its predecessors with renewed zeal and pursue an economic agenda that was informed by the interests of the wealthy national and international benefactors that had helped bring the party into power.

A young leader of the party who contested recent elections on NA-53, Ammar Rashid said that the PTI was essentially a form of populist politics that had built a coalition of various classes and groups disaffected with the existing order through its vague signifier of ‘change’.

Ammar Rashid said that the PTI had done this through what was essentially a ‘moralist’ narrative focusing on ‘corruption’ rather than the structural problems within the socioeconomic system.

Speaking on the occasion, senior journalist Zahid Hussain said that the election and PTI’s victory had thrown up critical questions about civil-military dynamics in the country and the role of the establishment in ensuring a favourable outcome for itself. He said that the way the election process had occurred had created serious concerns about the possibility of an authoritarian regime in the coming days. He said the spectacular vote count of new rightwing parties like the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan was also an alarming sign of the mainstreaming of fascist religious groups in the country.

Alia Amirali of AWP said that while the PTI branded itself as the party of the youth, it had done little to empower young people in its stint in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, nor did it state in its manifesto that it would restore institutions of student representation like student unions. She said that in order to build an actual progressive alternative, it was important that students, workers and women in the country were organised to protect their rights from being attacked by the government, the state and the religious right in the coming years.

AWP Deputy Secretary Ismat Shahjahan said that PTI’s programme was essentially a rehashing of historical centralist nationalist doctrines in a new populist garb. She said that while the PTI had established a political foothold in multiple provinces, it was unwilling to redress the establishment-driven narrative of Pakistan as a unitary state and during its time in power in KP had even repealed progressive legislation on mother tongues. She said that Pakistan and its people could only prosper moving forward if it is made into a voluntary federation in which all ethnic-nations are equal. Similarly, she doubted the will of the PTI to reorient Pakistan’s foreign policy towards non-alignment with an emphasis on friendly relations with its neighbours and the peace dividend that this would ensure.

Published in Daily Times, August 13^th 2018.