After the party’s defeat in the first phase of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa local body elections, Prime Minister Imran Khan has dissolved all the organizations of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and come up with a new structure besides forming a 21-member constitutional committee consisting of the national leadership of the PTI to oversee the remaining elections. When the political war is in full swing, it is quite unwise to change the leadership, which visibly shows the signs of weakness, and may reduce the morale of the party workers. The supreme body recently met in Islamabad where Prime Minister Imran Khan expressed dissatisfaction over the performance of the PTI in the first phase of the KP local body elections. The results show that PTI is still the largest party in KP. The party believes the wrong distribution of party tickets brought them bad results, which may partially be true for some constituencies, otherwise the party had fielded the strongest available candidates. The party has tasted the defeat only for deviating from its core principles, and the perception created by the media and opposition about the quality of government being delivered. The party has lost the battle of narratives in the public, which the party stalwarts are unable to defend and face.
While installing the new setup, the party has made cardinal mistakes. For example, the key party slots have been given to the ministers, which is again against the party’s earlier policy that no minister should govern the party’s office. Among the new office-bearers, only Pervez Khattak can be forgiven for his past political track record. The other office-bearers, such as Asad Umar, Shafquat Mehmood, Ali Zaidi, and Qasim Suri, all lack political and public touches, which a political leader should have to inspire the workers.
As the new phase of elections is approaching, and in this context, all the political parties are re-aligning to enter the electoral field, the PTI government has so far failed to address the issues of poverty, inflation, and unemployment. Instead of focusing on party structure, the government should address people’s worries which made it difficult for the PTI to win the first phase of the KP elections. If these problems gradually escalate as a result of government policies, the PTI may become a matter of the past.
