More of the same

Former prime minister Imran Khan’s second public rally since his ouster was as large as had been expected. With an enthusiastic crowd that filled up Karachi’s Bagh-e-Jinnah on Saturday night, the air was expectant given the DG ISPR’s press conference last week. Would the former PM counter the clearly-articulated dismissal of his ‘foreign conspiracy’ narrative? The answer came in a speech that for most people has now become a bingo game: the same words, the same slogans, the same refrains. However, there seems to have been a bit of a shift in the goalpost, with Imran on Saturday focusing far more on the role played by the judiciary – of whom he asks why courts were opened at midnight. This may be the PTI’s way of tweaking the narrative by making the larger issue that of the PDM-PPP opposition and the judiciary instead of taking on the establishment.

While the PTI chief did not mention the DG ISPR presser, he did continue his conspiracy line, insisting once again that American authorities had been meeting up with not just politicians from the opposing camp (and some from his own party) but also with journalists. We are yet to understand what he is implying by that. Are journalists too now going to be placed on trial, like parliamentarians and the judiciary? This dog-whistle regarding journalists can lead to dangerous consequences, a glimpse of which we have already seen in reports on social media that have revealed PTI supporters harassing media workers of different media outlets. There are increasing fears that, much like the way dissenting PTI members have been heckled in public, if things continue this way party supporters could also harass journalists who are just doing their job. In fact, just over the weekend there was talk on a few journalists’ home addresses having been leaked and ‘protests’ planned outside their homes.

Imran told the packed audience on Saturday night to keep their protests peaceful – but to protest loudly against the ‘imported government’ of the ‘Mir Jafars’ of the country. Probably unable to keep himself from a veiled threat, the former prime minister did address a vague entity by saying that if the PTI were pushed to the wall “you will suffer, not the country”. All in all, while the Karachi jalsa was high on rhetoric and low on substance, it is obvious that it is not of much concern to the party or its leader. The numbers coming out for the jalsas are huge by all accounts; the narrative of a foreign hand in Pakistan’s politics has caught on – though how much and how deep is debatable; and the PTI seems to be banking on using the optics of jalsa numbers to push for early elections. The question is how it is reading voting tendencies and patterns to be so optimistic about an early election. Does the party feel it has managed to convince enough people of the foreign conspiracy line? If so, without electables and any financial or other patronage, how is Imran planning to muster an electoral triumph? The Pakistani middle class has no doubt had a fascination for a hero that will save the day. But that hasn’t really captured the voting patterns in the country. Sceptics of Imran and the PTI’s popularity feel this may be the last desperate attempt at taking back some power by a leader who has been pampered into believing his messianic status.