**Business Recorder editorial questioning the logic of Imran Khan and Tahir ul Qadri.
PTI, think before you leap**
August 12, 2014
RECORDER REPORT
The battle lines have been drawn. Leading their respective forces Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri would like to enter the Capital hand-in-hand and stay put till the Nawaz Sharif government crumbles. What happens then they cherish divergent, clashing worldviews: Imran hopes to win the next general elections and form government while Qadri would try putting on ground his ‘Green Revolution’ - a sure recipe for lingering political instability in the country. Will Nawaz Sharif surrender to them just like that it is neither expected nor plausible, given his inherent strength in that not only is the law on his side the ultimate custodians of national independence and security are also on his back. Apprehending turmoil of the kind now in the making at the time the armed forces are engaged in cleansing the country of terrorism it was at the advice of military high command that the federal government called in troops under Article 245. Army Chief General Raheel Sharifhas said this in so many words. Obviously, for the Nawaz Sharif government the storm gathering on the Capital’s horizon is not as ominous as the ones that twice deprived him of his office. There is no reason he will not fight back with whatever it takes to stop the invaders at the gates. But this fight can be really bloody. The drumbeat heard from his opponents’ camps is increasingly acquiring the ring of a do-or-die battle for Islamabad. Having learnt that regular police is no match for the fully-equipped workers and that Khan has threatened to ‘hang the errant police’ there is no reason the federal government will not call in more troops in aid of civil power should things get messier. And soldiers don’t fire in the air. Such an eventuality should not have to pass, and perhaps could have been averted - save for a clutch of power-addicted politicians who kept egging on both Imran and Qadri to spurn talks with the government and go for a bloody confrontation. Tahirul Qadri wanted what now tends to obtain in terms of increasing political uncertainty. But this cannot be said about Imran Khan whose 16-year-old struggle came to fruition only through a democratic process. His party is in power in one of the federating units, offering him an opportunity to prove his competence and potential to be the prime minister in the near future. But even at this late hour he is not trapped in a cul-de-sac; he can retrieve him and that is possible through: one, by offloading the baggage of so-called ‘Green Revolution’ and two, by keeping his sit-in in the Capital free of violence. The violence, for his or anyone else’s reason and this cannot be ruled out, will certainly undermine his democratic credentials. And should he persevere in his state of denial and bring the roof down then it will bury all under it - it has happened a couple of times before. Not that the military leadership would like it to happen, but it may become inevitable. Never ever was Pakistan faced with so daunting a challenge to its national existence as today. What the armed forces expect of the nation is moral and political support, but the political wrangling, as it plays out today in the country with politicians crying ‘give me power or give death’, is just the opposite of that support.
Having lived quietly for the whole years with ‘rigged elections’ for full one year the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf can surely live with this pain for some more time at least till ongoing military operation against terrorists is over. Isn’t it a national tragedy that the Independence Day will be celebrated a day before the due date only to avoid the possibility of bloody clash coincidental to the auspicious occasion? As to how injurious is the ongoing political tug of war the dual-national Qadri may never know - the very next morning of his kill-and-get-killed hark to his followers the Karachi Stock Exchange crashed by over a thousand points. Surprisingly, but understandably, while he roared and thundered in Urdu in the English part of speech was smacked of Gandhian non-violence. Some days back in these pages we had argued that Article 245 is no roadblock to PTI rally. To us that holds good today, but for the condition the PTI workers are willing to accept that their Fundamental Right to assemble is subject to the constitutional proviso ‘any reasonable restrictions impose by law in the interest of public order’. Can the PTI-walas do it in the company of Qadri’s revolutionary? Frankly speaking, we doubt it. There is still time for the PTI leadership to rethink its ‘Azadi March’. After all politics is art of the possible.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2014