EDITORIAL: Aware of what awaits him in Sunday’s no-trust vote against him, in his nearly hour-long address to the nation on Thursday evening, Prime Minister Imran Khan let it be known that he is not going to go down without a fight. Sharing his “inner feelings” with the people in a carefully crafted though unwritten speech, he set the tone for his next election campaign.
He claimed that an international conspiracy has been hatched against his government by opposition leaders — whom he called ‘three stooges’ — in cahoots with a foreign power who knew where these leaders’ money and properties were located. The obvious insinuation being that they are vulnerable to external pressures due to those assets. He was being victimised, he said, for pursuing an independent foreign policy, and that Sunday would be defining day in the country’s political history as it would be decided whether to go for “an independent foreign policy or slavery of the superpowers”.
He vowed to foil the alleged conspiracy. This country being no stranger to real or perceived notions of conspiracy, the speech can easily resonate with the fears and suspicions of the people. It may win back many of his moderate supporters he had managed to alienate with certain retrogressive policies and projects. Out of power, he said, he would not sit silently, which no one doubted, adding that he would become even stronger.
If Imran Khan wanted to see who among his party men would stab him in the back during the no-trust vote that was understandable. But calling his party’s deserters ‘Mirs’ and ‘Jaffers’ — the two men known in the subcontinent’s history as traitors for collaborating with the British colonials against their own native rulers — he warned that “the nation would not forgive nor forget you, and the people behind you, for becoming a part of the international conspiracy.
” He also told people to remember their faces. He might have meant that they should not vote for them again, however, some of his party zealots could take that quite literally. In fact, even before he sounded that warning, some PTI activists surrounded an opposition legislator shouting insults at him. The situation could have gotten uglier had the police not been there to protect him. The same day, an MNA from the MQM, a government ally which has parted ways to join the opposition, faced an angry crowd at the Islamabad Airport calling him ‘lota’ (turncoat). Before that a mob led by two PTI legislators from Karachi had tried to forcibly break into the Sindh House where their party rebels were staying. This must come to a stop before more serious clashes break out between the PTI and opposition parties’ activists and things spin out of control, leading to unsavoury consequences for all.
It is imperative, therefore, that cooler heads prevail. Both sides need to ensure that the atmosphere is not poisoned any further, precipitating a cycle of political instability. Hopefully, it is not lost on any of the players that whatever be their grievances, theirs and the country’s long-term interest is in an uninterrupted and uninterruptable democratic process.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022