As humble as my opinion is, I wish to share it with this forum nonetheless.
I had it all wrong these last few days. I thought IK was a pragmatic, brilliant leader - one whose political strategy was beyond all of us. I don't know about you lot, but he's had me on a roller coaster ride since before the elections. I saw it all in him. Visionary, honesty and willpower. I along with my fellow PTIans formed the support base, destined to make sure the tsunami came and washed it all away. All the filth, all the corruption, all the time we've lost under inept governments, all that terrorism festering in FATA, everything...
Can't say what happened in Punjab, but PTI won from Islamabad. Not a surprise, there were thousands of us! It was a great start and we were only going to get stronger from here. KPK was where the Naya Pakistan would take root. We would develop our way down the Potohar plain, along the Ravi, into the deserts of Sindh and then gush forth into the Arabian Sea, an uncontrollable fierce tempest of educated and informed individuals, mostly young but some younger than others. This was our time.
I was there after the elections too, protesting all that dhandli. Select few constituencies, shouldn't have happened - had the posters up high, calling for fairness and a re-count.
It wasn't just one protest, there were many. Different cities, different times, but one call - re-count for select few constituencies. Shortly before the Azadi March took shape, the local Imam from the mosque of the Sharif brothers' childhood came back calling. Demanded a revolution. A small minority of devouts answered the call, the large majority remained impervious to it having a broad spectrum of disagreements with such an idea or movement. The biggest disagreement, of course, being that we didn't have a leader in TuQ - we had a leader in IK.
To my utter amazement IK too committed himself to an Azadi March on the 14th, calling all of Pakistan together to protest the electoral fraud. Pray, tell...why now? A year and a half too late, maybe, not for him though. It was worrying to say the least. A million people in Islamabad, straining the Federal Government's resources with the army desperately fighting terrorism in FATA. Having already made up my mind that TuQ's Inqilaabi March was not in the interests of Pakistan, IK's Azadi March fell square into that category as well. I had solace in the fact that at least his demands were still constitutional, re-count in the 4 constituencies.
Shit hit the fan when the government amped up its game and decided to put an end to both the marches. TuQ's through force because it's common knowledge what he wants, and IK's through party diplomacy. The strategy didn't work, and Model Town was sealed off, Lahore ran dry of fuel and Islamabad dressed itself in containers. Here's where everything went wrong.
Initially denouncing the undemocratic ways of TuQ, IK announced unconditional support for TuQ after their Inqilaabi March went south. Called for celebrating Youm-e-Shuhada with him too. This resulted in a lot of PDF members, loyal to IK to automatically sympathize with the PAT. Why, would he do that? In TuQ's Pakistan, argued I, there is no place for IK and PTI. It's a completely different set-up. Didn't make sense. As worrisome as it was, I leaned in favour of IK's brilliance. He subsequently called for the murder of the Sharifs and became ever decreasingly subtle in his absolute dislike for the two brothers - quite in the same fashion as TuQ was doing. There was something more to this. When TuQ later announced that his march would walk with IK on the 14th, it all fell into place. Numbers and the ace of spades.
IK was mimicking TuQ's rhetoric to clandestinely win, with varying degrees of success, the support of the PAT workers and only taking TuQ along because with TuQ came the likelihood of violence, and with that came the victim-card. If PTI lost supporters to an oppressive PML-N who were only exercising their right to protest, PML-N's popularity would dwindle. Any violence from the protesters side could easily be pinned on the PAT workers, giving the PTI a clean chit. The numbers of both PTI and PAT ensured that the scale of the entire event was beyond the operational ambit of the police and hence the army would be obliged to take over and because the army appears to be pro-democracy, an election would be on the horizons soon. Any such election would ensure that PTI entered it, at the very least, with the same political impetus which PPP had after Bibi passed away. It was the only conclusion I reached, other than of course the possibility that IK was mixing things up and dealing with forces he did not quite know how to handle.
No democratic, pluralistic party aligns itself with a person who's as fickle as the monsoon rains, lacks credibility, is a foreign national, has had very little political success and is openly berating the system calling for a green, Islamic revolution. We all know how successful revolutions have been.
When the threat of violence boiled down to a simmer because PML-N allowed IK to march on and TuQ too after Altaf bhai gave his guarantee...I became skeptical once again. No threat of violence, no military coup - what then would be IK's end-game? Pressure on the government with a million strong, seeking their resignation and mid-terms - would that really work?
Maybe, maybe not...a deal would likely be struck and that would be the end of it. Not that brilliant a plan any more but hey, electoral reforms would still be a major victory. One that would have come about anyway at the end of PML-N's term but why wait till later.
The day of the march IK parted ways with TuQ in Lahore. It was fishy, just hours earlier they'd orally agreed to 4 points and just 2 days earlier IK's polemic against the government and in favour of TuQ took the semblance of a blood pact and, by implication, an undying unity which would last through march and into the new government. IK must have had his reasons. Clearly didn't want the violence any more, sensible political decision I'd say.
Then it began. I thought Mubashir Luqman's release of a video of Rana Mashood accepting bribes from Malik Asim was the genesis of Imran Khan's master ploy to root the federal government from its seat. It's timing was impeccable, moments before the march. The government was in disarray, or at least concerned! The promised damning revelations had begun!
But here's where I was wrong, yet again!
Granted the march was long and tedious and only managed to crawl into Islamabad on the Indian Independence Day but what I did not see coming was it immediately breaking apart. There was no speech. There was no momentum. There were no further damning revelations to be made, not just that day but the next too! IK simply skipped the long march and called it quits while his loyal supporters ran helter-skelter seeking respite from the relentless torrent of rain that first night. The next day was equally as uneventful with the same worn-out rhetoric being hung out dry yet again. Nothing to add, not even enough supporters! And those that were there had to put up with a desperate lack of food, sanitation and purpose. The Canadian cleric had it all together, and better than PTI! What the hell just happened?
It got worse just last night when instead of keeping his composure, IK ruined his political credibility further by ranting against NS and calling for civil disorder. It was easy to see that the man who I'd assumed was being driven by ungodly intuition was actually a man spiteful and driven by blind hate, a man who's honesty and good-intentions had been stubbed by his insular lack of appreciation for diplomacy and patience.
The leader who spurred me to my to cast my first ever vote left me dismayed and aghast and had fallen from grace without so much as having had a moment of glory. Electoral reforms, yes please. Vote for PTI again, no thank you.
