Imran Khan’s new trump card in the tense political game
ON the eve of the change of command at the GHQ, Imran Khan has come up with a new trump card that has added a new twist and an enigmatic turn to the highly polarized and political power game going on in the country these days.
The PDM Government was bracing itself to deal with the much-publicized long march of the PTI but was clean bowled by the surprising googly delivered by the Kaptaan of the PTI.
The surprise announcement to end the Long March and immediately dissolve the provincial assemblies of Punjab and KP caught the government on the wrong foot and this new strategy of the PTI has brought a new twist to the entire political landscape.
This new political bomb is supposed to force the government to agree to early general election in the country and the expected victory of the PTI and the next tenure as Prime Minister of Imran Khan.
It is now clear that the month-long campaign in the form of a march just failed to achieve any of its objectives and it is now to be seen if this new tactic adopted by Imran Khan to checkmate the ruling coalition will succeed in achieving the desired results the PTI is aiming for.
The end of the two Provincial Assemblies in the two most populous provinces will certainly increase political tension and add fuel to the raging fires of political chaos and uncertainty in the country.
If the PTI members from Sindh and Balochistan also tender their resignations, it will make it very difficult for the ruling coalition to hold on to power and they will have to go for early elections immediately.
The future is still uncertain and this announcement does not mean anything unless and until it is implemented in letter and in spirit.
It is yet to be seen if the two Chief Ministers of the concerned provinces will dance to the tune of Imran Khan or they may have a mind of their own.
At the same time, the ruling coalition at the Federal level does not have any trick up their sleeve to thwart the constitutional process of dissolution of the two provincial assemblies.
They are left with the only option of a Governor’s Rule but this option may not be possible in this highly charged atmosphere.
Even if the two provincial assemblies are dissolved the Federal Government will still not be under any constitutional obligation to call for a general election but elections in the two biggest provinces within 90 days will be an extremely expensive and laborious exercise and it will result in more chaos and political tension.
Imran Khan and the PTI MNAs are already out of the National Assembly and they have now decided to pressurize the Speaker of the National Assembly to immediately accept the resignations of all the PTI members.
With the absence of the PTI members the National Assembly has already lost any effectiveness and when all the resignations are finally accepted, it will be a total dysfunctional entity.
This new tactic of Imran Khan is aimed to completely destabilize the entire political system and the very weak political coalition government is in no position to face this onslaught of a mounting political pressure.
Ironically, it appears that nobody is worried about the impending economic collapse and the now alarming prospect of sovereign default.
The Federal Government and their finance team do not seem to have the ability to steer the country out of the economic mess that is getting more and more serious by each passing day.
Today we are faced with a serious current account deficit and the dangerously rising inflation are posing a very dangerous threat to any meaningful economic growth in the near future.
The chaos and confusion in the political game will not allow any betterment or even any efforts to stem the rot in our economic sphere.
In the words of the former Finance Minister Miftah Ismail the country is on a “consistent downward slide” but all warnings and sane advice seems to be falling on deaf ears and drowned in the cacophonous screams of a political blame game with no end in sight.
The present state of affairs is not just politics it is an economic crisis of a dangerous magnitude that could lead to anarchy and a breakdown of national institutions.
To compound the situations there has been an alarming rise in acts of terrorism and increased armed incursions by the TTP in the form of suicide attacks on the army and police and the TTP has openly declared the end of negotiations with the government while encouraging its militants to step up their attacks on the law enforcing agencies of the country.
The alarming rise in militant activities in the tribal areas is definitely due to the weakened state authority and political uncertainty.
The bloodthirsty militants and religious extremists of the Taliban are now again in full cry in the Swat Valley ten years after they were forced to leave the region.
The presence of heavily armed Islamic militants is reminiscent of the blood chilling days when the Swat Valley was handed over to the Taliban by the Nizam-i-Adl resolutions and Sufi Mohd and his son-in-law Mullah Fazal Ullah were the uncrowned kings of the area.
After 2008 the militants of the TTP have resurfaced not only in Swat but also in the tribal agencies of North and South Waziristan.
—The writer is Professor of History, based in Islamabad.
