The current political crisis in Pakistan is being engineered by two people whose political foresight seems too woefully short on wisdom. Imran Khan of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT)’s Chief Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri, in agreeing to be brothers in arms for a cause that is vague in its delineation, are pushing the country towards further instability.
As an elected leader of Pakistan’s third largest political party, Khan, of all the people, must surely know this. The fact that he is seeding storm clouds with much help from Qadri, a man he held in contempt until recently, is to the great misfortune of a country that lionised him for his cricketing career. Khan’s diatribe against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has a tenuous hold on logic as things stand. His call for a re-vote in last year’s national elections — that swept Sharif to power — has incubated for over 14 months before it turned into a rallying cry. Its timing, and dissonance, therefore, cannot go unquestioned. Khan’s decision to take the route of least resistance — populist politics — rather than bring out the matured politician and negotiator in him is ticking all the boxes in how to jeopardise Pakistan’s hard-won democracy.
Between the implausibility of Sharif acquiescing to his demands of resignation to the rally possibly fermenting violence on a large-scale, Khan’s own success in this situation faces a potential dissolution. What’s worse, his grandstanding is providing Pakistan’s military hopes of a reprisal, a curse Pakistan could do without. While the Nawaz Sharif government has yet to quicken the pulse of Pakistanis with any kind of a display of strong governance, it does not mean that political opponents must do the unthinkable — loosen democracy’s initial grip on a country that so desperately needs it, and weaken its Constitution. Khan and Qadri are putting up misguided, half-baked protests at crucial moment in Pakistan’s history. They must stop and the prime minister and his cabinet must be given a proper time frame to address the country’s immediate issues including a slumping economy, frequent power shortages as well as the Taliban insurgency in the north.
