What is Imran Khan up to?

Imran Khan has given a call for a million-man march on the federal capital on 14th August, basically to highlight the alleged rigging of the general elections held last year and demand new elections. While addressing his party leaders and workers in Lahore on 24 July, he declared that he had withdrawn his initial demand for the recount of only four constituencies and now wanted the audit of the entire election process of 2013. He went on to emphasise that he did not “expect any change from the parliamentarians who grabbed power by stealing the people’s mandate.” He reiterated his demand for re-elections and a change in his address to his party workers in Lahore last Sunday.
Of course, it is the constitutional right of Imran Khan and his party to hold peaceful demonstrations to voice their grievances. However, it is also incumbent upon them as on others to exercise this right in a responsible manner. Above all, it is imperative that nothing is done to destabilize the democratic system which is now gradually taking root in Pakistan. Imran Khan’s demand for new polls carries the risk of setting in motion a process which may lead the country towards political instability, allowing another adventurer and non-democratic forces to take over the reins of government. If the events take this unfortunate course, it will be the country as a whole and the masses who will suffer as Pakistan’s past experience shows. As Einstein pointed out, the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Pakistan has had four experiments of military rule each of which ended in disastrous results. Ayub Khan’s rule laid the foundation for political instability in the country and Pakistan’s dismemberment, a project which was sadly completed by the succeeding Yahya Khan military regime. Zia-ul-Haq’s military rule sowed the seeds of religious extremism and terrorism from which the country is currently suffering. As for Pervez Musharraf, it should be enough to remind ourselves about his Kargil adventure, which virtually buried the Kashmir dispute militarily, the gross mishandling of the Afghanistan policy involving initially total support to the Taliban and after 9/11, a U-turn under the threat of the US ultimatum, the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti, the Karachi massacre of May, 2007 to suppress the lawyers’ movement, and the declaration of emergency of November, 2007, just to quote a few examples of his misjudgment and misrule. Each of these military rulers delivered a severe blow to the rule of law in the country without which political stability, sustainable economic progress, and justice for the masses cannot be envisaged.
The country, which is now slowly recovering from the consequences of the repeated military takeovers in the past, cannot afford another bout of military rule with its attendant adverse consequences. This point needs to be driven home as the stalwarts of PTI include several remnants of Pervez Musharraf’s discredited military rule. It is also quite revealing that only those parties and individuals have rallied to Imran Khan’s call for a long march on the capital who were associated with Pervez Musharraf’s military regime directly or indirectly.
Imran Khan’s demand for new polls lacks any political justification as no country can function effectively with a modicum of stability, an essential requirement for economic progress, if the losing party or parties do not give the winning side the chance to govern and be judged by the electorate after completing its constitutional term. Even if Imran Khan succeeds in collecting a million people on 14 August, their views cannot be a substitute for the mandate of the people given at the elections last year. If the principle of a million-man march on the federal capital to overthrow the elected government is accepted, no elected government in Pakistan would be able to complete its term, thereby consigning the country to perennial instability and allowing non-democratic forces to fish in troubled waters. At the same time, Imran Khan’s grievances about the rigging of 2013 elections at the specified constituencies should be attended to expeditiously through regular legal and judicial procedures. The newly established parliamentary committee for electoral reforms should complete its task at the earliest to close all loopholes for the rigging of elections in the future.
Imran Khan’s demand for new elections reflects his whimsical and self-contradictory approach to politics. Last year, despite his reservations about the election results at some of the constituencies, he accepted the results and formed the KPK provincial government led by his party. His party representatives have also been participating in the deliberations of the National and Provincial Assemblies over the past one year. If the rigging was as serious and extensive as Imran Khan would have us believe now, he should have rejected the election results all over the country last year. Initially, he demanded recounting at four constituencies. Now he wants the audit of the whole electoral process and new general elections. He also wants to change the “system” while nobody knows what he means and how that change will take place. In any case, the right place for the reform of the “system” is the Parliament and not street demonstrations. Simply put, Imran Khan cannot hold the whole nation hostage to his whims and political naivety.
It is possible, indeed likely, considering our political culture, that electoral irregularities may have taken place at some constituencies during last year’s elections. But since the elections took place under care-taker governments at federal and provincial levels, it is highly unlikely that any single party could have benefitted from large scale rigging. Indeed the election results were more or less in line with the predictions of pre-election public opinion polls. While PML(N) was able to form the government at the federal level and in Punjab, the provincial governments in other provinces were led by other parties. Therefore, the PTI’s demand for new polls lacks any substance or logic. Imran Khan would be well advised to provide good governance in KPK where he has the opportunity to do so instead of wasting his own time and that of the nation through his idiosyncrasies.
There is no doubt that the performance of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his government so far has been far below par. He has failed to make a dent in any of the serious economic problems from which the country was suffering when he took over last year. This is partly because, as in the past, he has surrounded himself with sycophants instead of relying on people with merit to assist him. It is in his own interest and the interests of the country to reform his style of government by assigning due role to merit, consultations, integrity, and austerity in deciding national policies.

The writer is a retired ambassador and the president of the Lahore Council for World Affairs.