Imran Khan might be a leader with a great vision but has awful advisers. He had the option to face the no-confidence motion with a sportsman spirit but opted out. He had ample time to win over his allies and get disgruntled members on his side; however, his front men made sure they make it impossible for them to come back by not only constantly bullying them but accusing them of treachery and even foreign conspiracy.
Khan had the option to resign and save his assembly, but he did not consider this option as well. Instead, he sacrificed the whole assembly including his own elected MNAs to save his office because his yes men guaranteed him that ruling of the deputy speaker cannot be challenged.
Khan once again proved the hypothesis that he is not a long term politician and his members are to be blamed for this. Previously, it was being assumed that he must have considered the attorney general and other credible judicial figures before giving this ‘surprise’, but what happened in the court on Thursday proved otherwise.
It can be said that Imran Khan just consulted Babar Awan and Fawad Chaudhary and went with the flow. He merely trusted the gut feeling of Sheikh Rashid and Shah Mehmood Qureshi to take such a huge risk.
The Supreme Court dismissed the ruling of the deputy speaker and reversed the decision of President Arif Alvi as well. The no-confidence motion that was dismissed by the deputy speaker in thirty seconds has been revoked. The ludo that PTI tried to scatter because it was losing has been set again. Khan tried to flee after uprooting the wickets, but the opposition dragged him back to the pitch. PTI wanted to embarrass the opposition, but the tables have been turned. It was not worth anything.
And let us not forget what this five-day havoc did to the economy. The dollar hit Rs190 which is a mayday for the economy. But since everyone was so curious about the Supreme Court’s verdict, this massive blow to the economy went under the radar.
Along with humiliation and embarrassment, this wrong move is going to cost PTI its narrative as well. PTI had manufactured a narrative that the no-confidence motion was a foreign conspiracy against the government. If it was so, the Supreme Court’s verdict would have been different. Since it is a ruling by the Supreme Court, PTI is not even in a position to call out the court. They cannot defend their narrative by saying that the “Supreme Court is also a part of the foreign conspiracy that’s why they gave the verdict in favour of the opposition”. PTI is quite active when it comes to accusing and name-calling the opposition parties, but not when it’s an institution like the Supreme Court. The apex court took five days to go through the justifications of the ruling by the deputy speaker and did not find any concrete basis for it, which is why they dismissed it.
Khan had a lot of options to save his face, but he let go of all of them just because he listened to the wrong people. The fundamental question is who told Khan to go for it? Who assured him to take a risk that was obviously going to cost his government along with his narrative? Of course, it’s those certain overconfident PTI members that we always see on TV every day that make things complicated for their party as a whole.
This is high time for Khan to differentiate between cricket and politics. He needs to revisit his narrative. He needs to fire all these yes men and must surround himself with people who will tell him the truth and ground realities instead of buttering him up. He has a vision and he needs to get the people who will help him in executing his ideas. Also, now that he has ample time, he needs to take a long pause, process what happened, and give tickets accordingly.
