All I know about Imran is that he is an opposition leader and has taken it upon himself to oppose everything the government does. Other than that there have been no notable achievements during his five years in the parliament. What I found most disappointing was his absence from parliamentary sessions and when questioned he replied that it is a futile exercise (not verbatim).
Imran was a great cricketer, a sharp cricketing brain who led Pakistan cricket to its pinnacle, the World cup. He then became a philanthropist and used his cricket fame, in a country that worships its cricket heros, to collect donations and build a modern cancer hospital in Lahore. This by no means was an easy task and Imran devoted his personal time, effort and I can easily assume his personal money for this dream to come true. What started out as a personal promise at the death of his mother turned out to be a major platform benefiting millions of poor Pakistanis who cant dream of affording such an expensive treatment let alone the kind of modern treatment SKMH provides. This however was not just Imran’s sole accomplishment. The entire nation supported him in this cause and even people earning less than a 100 rupees a day gave 10 rupiah per month towards the cause. The entire Pakistani team, television and film artists at the time attended the charity shows and collected donations. It was a national campaign and the entire nation should be proud of the accomplishment of SKMH dream and Imran in particular for leading the effort.
Imran then tried to cash in on the fame and turned to Pakistani politics. I do not question Imran’s sincerity, just like I don’t question Musharraf’s, towards making Pakistan a better country. He is amongst a select few Pakistani politicians who are not corrupt financially, although one can probably not prove any financial corruptness against any Pakistani politician, BB and NS being prime examples.
It has all been downhill since. Imran has turned more confusing with every passing year. What does he stand for? What does he want to change and how does he want to change it?
Imran wants to bring about change by changing laws and changing policies. What he is yet to realize is that laws and policies are all in place, it is the implementation that is lacking in Pakistan. I have read the manifesto of PTI and it is gives you no insight into how change shall be brought about.
Imran lost his first elections. I am not sure if he ever claimed rigging to be the reason, but it was generally accepted by public and although I was personally involved with the election campaign (on a very small level), I don’t remember anyone questioning the results. The tide was anti PPP and all votes, even people campaigning for Imran, voted for Nawaz Sharif just to keep BB out.
Khan Saab, made it to the assemblies in his second attempt by winning the seat in Mianwali, which is quite ironic. Considering that he stands against the typical Pakistani politics of biradari and personalities being bigger than the cause, he had to turn to his ancestral town, a place that was never his residence, to send him to the parliament.
Musharraff came to power promising the country that he will get rid of corrupt politicians and to achieve that he turned towards a person who was known nationally, was smart and presentable, said all the things Musharraff said and was not knowingly corrupt. Imran had the opportunity of a life time to make a difference, but it was probably the clash of two strong personalities that the set-up failed to materialize. Musharraf wanted more control, so did Imran. If Imran had been a politician, he would have taken up the opportunity and tried to work on the General from with-in. It is a shame as probably Pakistan was the loser.
As years passed, the fog around Imran Khan’s objectives only increased. Although he was un-willing to sit with the general, who at the time was supported by the majority, he sat with everyone else that he had opposed in the past.
Imran’s love affair with Jamat-e-Islami also makes a lot of Pakistanis skeptics of him. If Pakistanis wanted religious parties to rule them they would have had elected them in the countless elections that have been held.
PTI was a brain child of retired general Gul Hameed Bhatti, ex-ISI chief, the architect of Taliban movement and the brains behind the struggle in Afghanistan against Russia. So does that mean Imran supports organizations like Al-Qaeda?
Is he a moderate of a fundamentalist?
It has been 11 years since the inception of PTI, unfortunately it has yet to fill in its organizational posts at the national level. If Imran can’t even name his party organizers how does one expect him to name a cabinet, if let’s assume he becomes prime minister tomorrow?
His economic policies are no more than deewanay ki baR, because reality is far different.
Why is it that he has not been able to attract any person of political stature to his party or promote anyone from the current members of his party at the National level?
How does he want to change the country’s destiny with his radical views when he doesn’t even have a team? Has he forgotten that winning the world cup and making Shaukat Khanum Hospital were team efforts?
In the last year Imran has just become anti Musharraff, and he doesnt care who he join hands with and how conflicting it is with what he says. How is he different from Musharraff if he is willing to sit with BB and NS? How is that any different from Musharraff having an alliance of convinience with PMLQ or PPP?
[FONT=‘Times New Roman’]Unfortunately he is going to waste his potential because of his tremendous ego. Asghar Khan anyone?