Daily Times

It is near to impossible to know what the Prime Minister is thinking and how his thought process will pan out over the next couple of months. But certain government decisions serve as precursors to the potential upcoming political storm: New elections. For many, it is speculation and may sound far a stretch. But the following reasons point to a pattern that logically leads to a credible theory that the Prime Minister is probably preparing for dissolution of assemblies and new elections:

First, overseas Pakistanis have been granted the right to vote and that is a major decision. This right came through not legislation, but by ordinance. Since the ordinance expires within 120 days as per the constitution, there is a limit to the time frame which it can benefit the overseas Pakistanis and politically by extension the Prime Minister Since the PM understands the overseas Pakistanis are his voters, they need to be made able to cast votes if needed during this period. He could not legislate as PTI does not have a majority and there is a remote chance to win over opposition for the legislation: it begs the question if the ordinance is going to expire after the anticipated date and also no chance for opposition support in the parliament to present the ordinance, why still to go with the decision anyway unless Prime Minister is preparing to go for elections during the span of the Ordinance.

Second, to the surprise of many, the government hyped the projected GDP growth rate and through higher publicity propagated an almost 4% growth figure for the 2021 financial year. The PM himself tweeted the expectation of a growth figure which is nothing but the ambitious goal post of the government’s financial team. Even the State Bank did not agree to the assessment and put across its disagreement publicly with the government’s exuberance unless the government wants to affect the perception domain for a specific twofold objective: a) that it has turned around the economy and now stabilized the indicators so it is ready to showcase as an economic performer if the PM were to go into an election campaign; b) It’s the economy that has battered the government over the last two years and people believe that the PTI  has miserably failed on the economic front. And this belief is so far well entrenched. This also led PM Imran Khan to change his economic advisor. So the perception of economic turnaround gives a great talking point to the PM and his team if they went into the election campaign.

Third, stand on Gaza to appease the base i.e. right-wing supporters. Since Imran Khan’s most followers are right-wingers on the political compass, he leaves no stone unturned to cash in on if an opportunity arises in order to please them.

For example, how the PM linking rape with women’s liberal attires, created around the world headlines and human rights, and women rights, International  NGOs went berserk in his condemnation. But it created positive traction within his vote base. The next opportunity was the Palestinian issue. Soon after the Gaza conflict, the  Prime Minister launched a massive flurry of diplomatic activity to leverage the empathy of the right-wing constituency even leaving behind the religious political parties and bewildered. Normally it is an issue that galvanizes the religious opposition parties to pull crowds on the street and abuse Israel. But this time Imran Khan simply overtook them in cashing in on people pro-Palestinian sentiments. If he were not contemplating elections, he would have eschewed populists politics–as being a Prime Minister he could have risked even violence on the street by officially fanning public sentiments. For, It was the government that declared a state-level endorsement of public rallies against Israel.

Fourth, the Prime Minister further pushed down the clutch pedal of what he calls an anti-corruption drive against the elite. The big news many pundits ignored was his decision to open the Hudaibiya case against the Sharifs, amplifying his anti-corruption narrative to a new level. The legal battle will be dominating and enticing the minds of his base that the Prime Minister will never compromise on his core value: checking corruption of the political opposition. The main reason could not be other than to live up to the expectation of his main constituency that he is still a fighter and if it were elections, he could still bank on their trust.

All these indications point to one direction that Imran Khan is preparing for elections. His bottom line is very clear: He politically can not afford nor ready to accept any scenario whereby he is chucked out of power disgracefully–either by the blackmailing of his own party or allies or establishment for that matter. The last thing he would want is  “Mujhe Kio Nikala”–a lesson he learnt from former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. So the answer to Imran thinking about new elections is a qualifying yes, by virtue of the de facto realities he created by certain decisions.