PTI’s 2013 inquiry blames internal weaknesses for defeat in elections

Shamraz_Khan · September 4, 2014, 3:52pm

After Ahsan Iqbal’s speech I googled and got this. So, last year IK was blaming internal problems/weakness for defeat and NOT rigging.

PTI

PTI’s inquiry blames internal weaknesses for defeat in elections
August 6, 2014 - Articles and Features - Tagged: Elections, Imran, Khan, pakistan, PMLN, PTI, Rigging - no comments
The News: PTI’s inquiry blames internal weaknesses for defeat in elections

ISLAMABAD: A party investigation into the causes of PTI’s defeat in the general elections blames internal weaknesses, and not poll rigging, as the primary reason for the party’s failing.

Instead of accusing the former chief justice, chief election commissioner, Geo TV and caretaker set-up, the PTI’s three-member inquiry committee found ill-timed intra-party elections, wrong selection of candidates motivated by favoritism and corruption, lack of preparation for the elections, Imran’s indifference towards workers and other issues as major factors behind the defeat. Many held Imran responsible for wrong selection of candidates, according to the report.

While a hype was generated through the media, the inquiry report said, it created a lull among the candidates into believing that they would win due to a ‘wave’ and need not work. In addition, the campaign ignored the poor and rural segments.

The report also highlights the grievances of party office bearers and workers against Imran Khan who, they complained, does not give them due importance. They held Imran Khan and other top leaders responsible for the mess in ticket distribution as all the decisions were taken by them, the report points out. Assessment of the candidates was done in a very “hush hush” manner, said the report.

Former federal secretary, Tasneem Noorani, eminent lawyer Ahmed Awais and Yacoob Izhar co-authored this internal report titled “Review Commission Final Report” that examined the intra-party elections, ticket distribution process and the factors that led to the failure of the party in the general elections.

Explaining the trouble caused by the intra-party elections shortly before the national polls, the report said it caused rivalries, grouping and personal animosity that seriously affected the unity and enthusiasm of PTI during the general elections.

Highlighting the flaws in the election campaign, the report said the poor and rural segments were promised nothing in the campaign. The national campaign was limited to TV ads and there was no contact with the rank and file of the party, it further notes. The TV campaign did cause an impact, the report explains, but the hype created a lull amongst the candidates into believing that they will win due a wave and need not work.

The top party leadership and the newly-elected office-bearers had no contact with the workers during the election days, according to the report. The PTI and its candidates made inadequate arrangements for the polling agents.

Highlighting the lack of non-preparedness, the report notes: “After hearing both sides, the Review Commission is of the view that there is no doubt that our candidates were not adequately prepared for the election day.” Among the ticket holders, 25% or so were youth, most of whom had neither election experience, nor the funds to launch an effective campaign. Further, three weeks that most candidates got to fight the election were totally inadequate, especially for the first time youth candidates, it said.

“Our candidates were exhausted by the time they got tickets,” the report points out, and had precisely three weeks to do everything. So they made half-hearted attempts to organise the polling agents or protest against the wrong posting of polling staff. The lack of harmony between the NA and PA candidates also acted as a major setback in the face of cooperation between the candidates of the opposing parties, the report said.

A few members had complained that Imran Khan does not give due importance to party workers, the report points out. They also held the party leadership, including the Imran Khan, responsible for the mess in ticket distribution, since the central parliamentary board took all decisions for awarding tickets.

Shamraz_Khan · September 4, 2014, 3:56pm

re: PTI’s 2013 inquiry blames internal weaknesses for defeat in elections

More…break down of why PTI last elections

Post-Mortem of Election Results-PTI | drnaumanshad

May 14, 2013
Post-Mortem of Election Results-PTI

While the enthusiasm and passion of PTI supporters at the polling stations was quite envious, PTI couldn’t quite make it. The following is a post-mortem of what is considered to be a tragedy hard to digest by many PTI supporters, although it may be the beginning of what it aims to achieve-A Naya Pakistan (New Pakistan).

Alleged Rigging
Although rigging in Pakistani elections is very common, but this time many video and pictorial ‘proofs’ of massive alleged rigging in the elections were shown, perhaps for the very first time to the public, on social media, which gave the rigging phenomena a lot of significance.
This is also said to have partially occurred because most of the workers of PTI were new to electoral process and were not aware in time to prevent the irregularities/rigging that may have taken place.
However Imran Khan is reported to have said on record that he believed that free and fair elections can never be held under President Zardari, so there is perhaps no logic complaining afterwards.
Secondly there is also a question of how much effect, if any, did rigging have on the final results, as rigging is also alleged to have occurred in other constituencies, including by PTI personnel in areas where PTI was successful.
Selection of Candidates
a) New Emerging Party

“The PTI is an emerging political party so differences are a part of the democratic cycle,” Senior leader
There were also a lot of internal rifts among the echelons of the party leadership over the exact framework to be followed in formulating a party hierarchy as well.
Examples include:
Party leaders including Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri, Sardar Assef Ahmed Ali, Sikandar Bosan, Jamal Khan Leghari, Mian Azhar and Mian Mehmood Rashid had conveyed their concerns, highlighting the fact that they had not been given any party office as yet.
They had also opposed direct nomination of seven new senior vice presidents as well as a president without holding appropriate consultations.

b) Timing/Preparations of Intra-Party Elections
Intra-party elections had to be postponed several times due to internal haggling. Some senior leaders like Mr. Javed Hashmi were of the view that they should be held after the general elections while others wanted them earlier. This may have taken the focus away from the challenge of the general elections especially for the candidates who lost and became disheartened by the results of these intra-party elections, especially as there were reports in newspapers of rigging/irregularities in these elections from the losing candidates as well as from journalists.

c) Internal quarreling
Several reports of internal rifts about selection of the most suitable candidates for the general elections also came out that may have brought a decline in its popularity.

d) Candidates inadequate in experience and knowledge of Politics
Many analysts feel that many candidates were chosen who did not have experience and that depth of knowledge about politics that is required. Examples were given of some young candidates, which although was a good sign, but may have lead PTI to a disadvantage.

e) Demand of Money from candidates
There were reports of huge amount of money extracted from candidates given PTI’s ticket for national as well as provincial elections and that money was also demanded for holding grand Jalsas of PTI in which Imran Khan or other senior leaders were to participate

f) Ability/Capacity/Temperament of candidate to fulfill lawful demands/requests of supporters after being elected
Many voters tend to see whether their chosen candidate will listen to their problems and will be capable enough to solve them. Since there were many new faces in PTI, this was thought to be less possible than with other experienced candidates. There was a feedback among the common men & women, that although some candidates may be corrupt or whatever, they were experienced campaigners, their doors are always open for the common man and they try to help their problems

g) Training/Trained of Candidates
PTI’s candidates were inexperienced and there was not enough time available for their training

h) Traitors
This rumor was also spread around in many circles including by Mr. Haroon Rasheed that senior leaders who later joined the party like Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Javed Hashmi acted like traitors by making a lot of errors and causing loss to the efforts of PTI

i) Role of Journalists
Many say that senior journalists like Haroon Rasheed and Hassan Nisar who were presumably supporting PTI, also wrote some articles concerning mistakes being made by the leadership of PTI. This may have confused some people.
Also some who doubted the integrity of journalists like the notorious Mubashir Luqman, who was caught live on camera in a controversial interview with Malik Riaz, and Hassan Nisar, who is a secularist having given many anti-Islamic statements including on twitter, also started doubting the sincerity of PTI and its leadership.

j) Chose candidate over party
Many people like to see who their candidate is including his experience, his sincerity, integrity etc before voting for him. This is because, according to them, they would be approaching the candidate primarily for solving their problems. Imran Khan cannot be at every place to solve their problems especially trivial problems. So despite Imran Khan’s request to vote for the party and not the candidate, this was probably turned down by many people.

Disagreement with Party Manifesto
Some people did not vote for PTI because they did not fully agree with the Party’s manifesto due to different views of some of its clauses, although it was a quite promising manifesto.
Anti-PTI ‘Propaganda’
This was one of the important factors that lead people away from voting for PTI. ‘Propaganda’ that Imran Khan is a Jewish agent because he married an ex-Jewess and that he helped his Jewish ex-brother-in-law in his election campaign in UK.
There was also propaganda that PTI is basically a secular party using the name of Islam as there were many members and supporters openly claiming to be secularists. In reality though, it was a mixed bag of different types of Muslims, both fundamentalists and secularists supporting the party.
There was also propaganda that Imran Khan is a ‘born-again’ Muslim because he was a playboy character early in his life and due to his alleged affair with Sita White, that bore a love-child Tyrian, a story that was immensely supported when Jemima acknowledged on twitter as being her step-daughter.
There were also complaints that Imran Khan was making mostly Anti-Nawaz speeches in his election rallies and he spoke less against Mr. Zardari and hardly spoke against MQM and ANP. This lead to propaganda that he had joined the establishment and made an agreement with PPP and MQM; propaganda that was assumedly supported by a few PPP candidates withdrawing in favor of PTI and PTI fielding its candidates in strongholds of JI in Karachi, thus dividing the right-wing vote.
JI also blamed the failure of seat adjustment with PTI, which many senior members initially agreed to, on a ‘no’ signal from USA.
Pro-PMLN ‘Propaganda’
Many voters were allured by many ‘developmental’ work done by PML N, despite the claims of corruption, including new road networks in major cities of Punjab, the Metro bus service, laptop scheme, opening 5-6 new government medical colleges in Punjab, eradication of dengue fever etc. The ‘untiring’ efforts of especially Shahbaz Sharif, was highly appreciated.
Baraderi/Fuedal System
This is a factor that may never be abolished: the feudal system or Baraderi system (in which whole families inter-related to one another) vote for the same approved party or candidate. This was again mostly seen in the rural areas of Punjab.
Irresponsible Behavior of Supporters
There were too many reports of irresponsible behavior by PTI trolls especially on social media including verbal abuse, ridicule showing disrespect even to elders. Complaint of physical abuse was also reported as in the case of the journalist Qatrina Hussain. This is thought be due to the inexperienced emotional young generation of PTI supporters who could not keep their emotions in check.
There were also complaints that PTI supporters ‘had an exclusive air of righteousness that gave them the right to corner, mock, intimidate or question another party’s supporter for having a political choice dissimilar to theirs.
This indifference in the attitude of some PTI workers may have damaged the repute of the party instead of strengthening it.
Influence of Foreign powers
This factor can never be negated. It is a question of how much influence did foreign powers or stake-holders like USA and Saudi Arabia have (these two countries are alleged to have been involved in influencing the results of the elections).

This is a complete analytic postmortem of elections in perspective of PTI’s performance and by looking at the post-mortem report, it may seem that the results are justified. There is no doubt, a keen interest, passion and people’s power has been unleashed by PTI. This passion should be carried on to the next elections along with assessing what went wrong and trying to fix them (as much as possible) next time….

Monk · September 4, 2014, 4:01pm

re: PTI’s 2013 inquiry blames internal weaknesses for defeat in elections

SO conclusion is PTI lost because they are not PMLN.

we knew it.

Holy_Lota · September 4, 2014, 4:10pm

re: PTI’s 2013 inquiry blames internal weaknesses for defeat in elections

[https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/3442652352/2f67376a996d1451a1197c97ef3ea14a_bigger.jpeg

Nunni Maryam ‏[COLOR=#8899A6]@**BabyMaryam](https://twitter.com/BabyMaryam) 4m
Koi Altaf Hussain ki line band karo plz. Jb jb ye bolta hai Karachi main Imran Khan k followers bartay hian. Hamare liye problem kara hai.
**

Shamraz_Khan · September 4, 2014, 4:10pm

re: PTI’s 2013 inquiry blames internal weaknesses for defeat in elections

PTI lost for many reasons, but internal problems were the biggest reason according PTI's own report. So, now please explain to us how did PTI came to conclusion now that it was rigging that cost them elections? I would like to know that. I just downloaded entire PDF file and will go throw it over time, but conclusion says PTI last NOT b/c of rigging, but b/c of internal factors.

So, isn't IK/PTI disingenuous when they blame rigging for election loss and now are holding entire country hostage?

Monk · September 4, 2014, 4:14pm

re: PTI’s 2013 inquiry blames internal weaknesses for defeat in elections

I need a break from GS, cant put up with this no more.

Shamraz_Khan · September 4, 2014, 4:19pm