During his rule, Imran Khan, badly failed to engage with the cacophonous parliamen-tary process of introducing laws as evidenced by the fact that over 50 laws were passed through presidential ordinances, instead of following due democratic proc-esses in parliament. This speaks volumes of Imran’s populist and non-democratic disposition to say the least.
The road to hell was paved with obnoxious intentions. This aptly captures Imran with his populist politics and demagoguery. He can best be described as a demagogue defined as a political leader who tries to get support by making false claims and ap-pealing to emotions rather than facts. Imran exploited the incentives provided by so-cial and mass media for his demagoguery and deeply polarized Pakistan’s political community and society. Pakistanis unwittingly believe in rhetoric of a reformer but that reformist image of him is fast fading as his government turned out to be no dif-ferent from those of his predecessors. He managed to portray himself as an anti-status quo and pretended to embody sen-timents and aspirations of the common Pakistanis by vehemently criticizing the PML-N and the PPP as family fiefdoms. He also claimed to have all the qualities of a good leader and promised to address the various socio-political malaises afflicting Paki-stan’s political system and society. He made lofty claims to introduce democratic re-forms and provision of justice at the door steps. He did not seem to realize that being a good cricketer doesn’t naturally make one an equally good politician or leader of a country. In retrospect, it was his lust for power and desire to become the PM by hook or by crook that he promised a tsuami of change to establish new Pakistan.
Given his preoccupation with the self-concept of a reformer and self-proclaimed peacemaker, he lacked even the basic understanding of foreign policy issues of Pa-kistan let alone the fast-changing dynamics of global politics. He lacked political fo-resight due to which he contradicted himself time and again. In utter violation of Pa-kistan’s long-standing commitment to the cause of the self-determination of Kash-miris, Imran went so far as to congratulate Narendra Modi on his re-election despite the fact that the latter had made no qualms about his ugly agenda towards Kashmir.
Imran not only betrayed his supporters and dashed their hopes for a new Pakistan by resorting to the same old political gambling and expediencies of relying on the electables to form government but also proved to be an utter failure in the realm of foreign policy. His government demonstrated criminal indifference to India’s revoca-tion of article 370 and 35 (A) to annex IOK and failed to mount adequate pressure on it. He could have mounted adequate international pressure on India for its utter viola-tion of relevant UNSC resolutions on Kashmir by engaging concerned and relevant organizations including the UN and the OIC but he deemed it apt to renege on his promises to approach the International Court of Justice than to take any meaningful action against India’s illegal annexation and human rights violations in IOK. Another major cause of people’s disillusionment with Imran is the fact that even as a Premier, Imran acted as if in opposition and continued to blame others to deflect public attention from his government’s abysmal performance. With no hope of change in Imran’s non-democratic actions, worsening economic crisis and growing political polarization and instability resulting from his government’s unprecedented disdain for opposition parties in the legislative assembly, his own coalition partners ultimately abandoned him and sided with the alliance of the opposition parties thus leading to his ouster.
He has embarked on a destructive path that portends ill for the national unity, eco-nomic security and stability of Pakistan. He is guilty of contempt of court and treason as he has been attacking state institutions and has been threatening high-ranking public and government officials for the mere sin of carrying out their professional re-sponsibilities. Imran’s inflated ego is badly hurt due to all such developments includ-ing the perceived insult of no confidence vote brought against him by his political ri-vals.
Imran needs to realize that roaming around targeting state institutions including the military, judiciary and political rivals without any reason or rhythm made him not a leader, not even a good politician but an unwanted anarchist and a demagogue. Pa-kistan can’t allow and can’t afford any further political instability and anarchy, when all state institutions are making concerted efforts to undo the damage that Imran has done while in power to the economy, socio-political fabric and morale of the state in-stitutions including the military. Imran’s attempts to drive a wedge between the peo-ple of Pakistan, its military and the elected government of the people smacks of for-eign conspiracy that needs to be dealt with an iron-fist. Imran has displayed a dis-gusting apathy towards Pakistan, Pakistanis and has made survival worse.
—The writer is editor, book ambassador political analyst and author of several books based in Islamabad.
