Imran Khan’s opportunity?

By Usama Abbasi

Much has been written about Imran Khan’s Lahore rally and its impact on Pakistan’s politics. The impressive public gathering has animated a lively debate about whether the cricketer-turned politician can convert a visible groundswell of support into a serious challenge to the country’s major political parties and emerge as a credible ‘third force’.

The dismissive tone adopted by Imran’s political opponents only revealed how rattled they were by his Lahore show. In fact, the Lahore rally seemed to crystallise deeper shifts in the public mood that have been underway for some time. Three trends are noteworthy and help to explain why Imran is receiving greater public traction now than in the past. The first and most obvious is growing public disenchantment with the two major parties. Successive opinion polls carried out by Gallup and Pew among others found public approval ratings for the major political leaders to have tumbled in the past three years. Two, by emerging as a symbol of hope, Imran is tapping into the spirit of a younger generation that expects leaders to offer them an optimistic vision of the future. And three, participation in the Lahore public meeting by members of the middle class suggests that a growing and more assertive urban middle class wants a greater voice in the country’s politics and governance. Many among them see Imran as a possible vehicle for their unfulfilled aspirations.  But to sustain the impact of a successful rally Imran must quickly assemble a credible team and evolve a serious and clear-cut platform of policy positions that goes beyond simplistic rhetoric. His challenge is also to build a team that balances the need for ‘electables’ in his party with resisting expedient compromises that can erode his popular appeal.

There are factors at play that can both help and hinder Imran’s political prospects. In many respects the political environment is more ripe for a ‘third force’. Politics has increasingly been lagging behind social and economic changes of the past two decades that have been reshaping the national landscape. Several economic and other factors, the impact of globalisation and spread of information technology have injected new dynamics into the political arena.

A wave of urbanisation has produced a larger middle class that seeks a bigger political voice. Demographic changes have led to a youth bulge. An increasingly youthful population with unmet expectations can be an important political force. Modern communications and expansion of the broadcast media have created a more ‘connected’ society which has been changing the way people relate to government and what they expect of it. Traditional political parties have mostly ignored these political currents. The public disillusionment this has engendered is also being reflected in the growing numbers of voters staying away from the ballot box.  In 2008 – an election that took place after prolonged military rule and in the charged atmosphere of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination – more than half the electorate, 56 per cent, did not vote.

This should have rung alarm bells for the main parties  but none paid attention to an important fact: that low and declining voter turnout over the years in large part reflected the public’s rejection of the narrow political choice offered to them at the ballot box.

This also gives rise to a central paradox of Pakistani politics today: while the two main parties and their regional allies continue to win the bulk of parliamentary seats, the political ground is shifting in ways that is creating a gap between electoral politics and changing patterns and mood in society. This presents Imran Khan with both a challenge and opportunity.

The opportunity to align politics with a changing society is there for him to seize. But he also has to contend with the entrenched structures of traditional politics that still dominate or determine electoral contests and outcomes. Patronage-dominated politics rests on working the spoils system. And this make electoral contests principally about gaining access to state patronage and then distributing it to reward supporters. The ability of members or scions of prominent political families and the rural elite to win parliamentary seats is also because constituencies are still delimited on the basis of old census data. As there has been no census since 1998, elections predicated on old numbers do not reflect the country’s greater urbanisation and end up over representing rural Pakistan.

Unless there is a comprehensive delimitation of parliamentary constituencies newer parties will be at an electoral disadvantage. A key question this raises is whether conventional politics and electoral factors that privilege the present incumbents can be trumped – as happened in 1970 – by a new political force that is able to override the entrenched instruments of power and influence?  The answer is that if anything can, it will be the combination of a powerful idea or message, a strong team and an effective political organisation that can mobilise the widespread desire for change in the country. 

Usama Abbasi is a student from University of Karachi and he has studied Mass communication as sub-major.

contact Usama by email: humarinews@gmail.com