The Moment of Truth for Imran Khan
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada

 

It hasn’t been an easy ride for Imran Khan, thus far, in his role as the leader of Pakistan.

The favourite, star, Kaptanof cricket-loving Pakistanis may have entered the tricky field of politics with a lot of optimism. However, the wicket he’s playing on, as Prime Minister, has turned out to be fairly sticky for his taste. His friends and admirers who welcomed his entry into a field that had, before him, been hogged by mostly dynastic politicos, share this assessment. Politics, a murky game in Pakistan’s context, hasn’t been kind to him, to say the least.

Of course, the rough and tumble of politics would test anyone, irrespective of their background or provenance. Politics, as Jawahar Lal Nehru famously said, wasn’t a thing for gentlemen. Imran, who made his name playing a game of gentlemen, cricket, was, according to this definition of politics, least qualified to don the mantle of a politician.

So, let’s be honest. Imran Khan (IK) should have known what he was getting into and shouldn’t have expected the cut-throat game of politics’ one-upmanship to be kind to him or give him grace marks because he was a novice to it.

But half-way through his elected mandate of five years, he has as much to blame himself as his adversaries and enemies for his average score card. Of course, his political rivals are mean-spirited and cussed-minded. He shouldn’t have expected them to show any grace—something they don’t happen to have in their DNA. But his own practice of one-step-forward and two-steps-backward has as much to blame for his problems as the uncouth and ungentlemanly conduct of his rivals.

Half-way down his mandated term as PM, his track-record is, at best, potty and chequered. Granted that he inherited a corruption-ridden system from his predecessors which had more holes in it than Swiss cheese. However, his own erratic style of governance hasn’t been a help to him, either. His seems to have been a roller-coaster ride up to this point.

The pandemic, indeed, has tested him in a way that he wasn’t prepared for and put on his plate problems that none had anticipated or could have foreseen. Interestingly, to his credit, no doubt, his management of Covid-19 pandemic has been more impressive and laudable than his leadership performance in other fields. He has been praised for his superb performance in combating the menace by even those, in the outside world, who wouldn’t, ordinarily, give credit to Pakistan.

However, having completed half his journey as leader, he’s now at a juncture where the direction he takes would decide his future.

The foremost duty of a leader is to ensure the safety and security of the people he leads. The pandemic seemed to have dented the crime rate in the country but with the whiff of normalcy in the air, it’s threatening to come back with vengeance.

That it has, already, is writ large on the wall in the dastardly incident at a coal-mine in Much, Baluchistan. Ten coal-miners, all from the HazaraShiia minority, were murdered in cold-blood on the night of January 2. The victims were blind-folded and their hands were tied behind their backs by their blood-thirsty assassins belonging to the murderous Daesh or partisans of the rabid Islamic State.

The down-trodden Hazaras, professing the Shiia faith, have been at the receiving end of sectarian terror since 2013. They have been targeted savagely and barbarically by the murderous fury of Daesh. Hundreds of them have been slaughtered, to date, with no end in sight. But this should be a wake-up call for IK. This isn’t how his putative ‘New Pakistan’ should be, with a poor community being constantly in the hair-triggers of terrorists operating with impunity. How can a leader claim to be in charge if the writ of the state is flouted with such facility by a band of terrorists in the country?

Crime is challenging the state’s writ right in the heart of the capital, Islamabad. A day after the blood-curdling mayhem in Baluchistan, a journalist, who had been kidnapped two days earlier, was freed by his unknown captors. But this invited a stern rebuke from the Chief Justice of Islamabad High Court who had taken note of the kidnapping, suomotu. What message is being relayed to the people of Pakistan when they see their government failing to protect a working journalist?

Synonymous to the daylight kidnapping of a journalist is the fundamental right of a people to exercise their freedom of speech. A journalist personifies this fundamental right. There’s, already, a rising murmur of discontent in the air from Pakistan’s liberal and vocal circles that IK’s government is leaning in favour of gagging the press and free expression.

IK should be extra-sensitive to this accusation, if it’s only just that. He’d, literally, gate-crashed into the domain of Pakistan’s arcane politics as an outsider. But it was, thanks to the unstinted support of the liberal segment of the liberal media that he became its denizen with an unprecedented and vocal support of both the intelligentsia and the masses. IK should be the last man to give any consideration to this nihilistic idea of putting gags on the media and free speech, even if this hare-brain idea has been floated by some whiz-kid within his circle of confidants and advisers.

But what would, in the final analysis, make or mar his governance of Pakistan is the economy. His government’s economic performance has been erratic, if not downright unproductive, as far as the interest and welfare of the common man is concerned. Yes, he inherited a deeply-flawed and moribund economy from those thieves who preceded him at the helm of Pakistan. Yes, economic indicators do speak of a turn for the better in the economy.

However, cold statistics are Greek and Latin to the common man faced with the daily, oppressive, grind of securing his daily bread and food for his family. The spiralling cost of living has, if anything, been going sky-high under IK. A common Pakistani is saddled with the back-breaking task of surviving on limited income. He isn’t impressed, any longer, by IK’s unrelenting sloganeering that he’s on the march to a happier and healthier Pakistan and its people must have faith in him to turn their fortunes around.

IK has failed to keep his popular following intact on this fundamental problem of bread and butter for the common man. He never, really, enjoyed a honeymoon in the real sense of the term. His political rivals were too self-absorbed in their incontinent craving to protect their ill-begotten wealth from the clutches of the law to give him any leeway. But, by now, he has squandered whatever reserve of goodwill he’d with the masses because of his poor economic performance.

Someone should remind him that a towering leader like Churchill, who saved his Britain from destruction and rout in WW II, lost the election on the heels of his historic triumph because the Britons didn’t trust him to drag them out of daily misery of bread and butter.

George Bush, Sr was a war hero, having defeated Saddam Hussain in the Gulf WarI, in 1991, and getting Kuwait liberated from Iraqi occupation. But he lost the 1992 election to Clinton, basically on the decisive issue of economy. He knew he was vulnerable. That’s why his election campaign hawked the popular slogan, “it’s the Economy, Stupid.”

IK is not stupid, by any stretch of his benighted political adversaries’ febrile imagination. But he could be as vulnerable to the wrath of the people—because of their take that he’s failed them on the basic issue of bread and butter for them—just as Churchill or Bush fell on their own sword. IK is not known for any proclivity to shoot himself in the foot. He will, ergo, be advised to take heed and focus his energies on taking the economy out of its ruts. History will judge him, primarily, on how best he comes to grips with it.- K_K_ghori@hotmail.com

(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)