The Winds of ‘Change’ – A reality or an Illusion

‘Change’ is not a new political slogan in the world; but in case of Pakistan, it definitely is. And change, as elaborated by President Obama during his election campaign, is not meant for the change of faces only; it refers to bringing improvements in the
entire system of governance and administration for making commoners’ life easy. Perhaps that is the very reason why a vast majority of educated masses in Pakistan is not only buying the idea but is also ready to become an agent of this change.

It has been about three and a half years when Pakistan was blessed with the revival of democracy in result of a constant struggle against the then head of state General Pervez Musharraf. Even at that time, although people’s hopes from tried and tested politicians
were not that high, but they had hopes from an active judiciary which had sworn to protect people’s right at any cost. Moreover, there was a general perception among the masses that the long struggle against the dictator had somehow changed the political leaders,
and now they were talking about developing a consensus to overcome people’s vows. But what followed was that the talks remained mere talks and people stood still deeper under the piles of the compost comprised of mal governance, corruption and mismanagement
which had now increased many folds.

As disappointment of the people from the government increased, opposition – mainly comprised of PML (N and Q) decided to remain indifferent and keep silent on deteriorating law and order situation, faltering economy, increasing inflation, unbridled corruption
and unprecedented mal governance. The stated situation, as evident, was destined to make life impossible for the people of Pakistan. They might have survived all such difficulties, but the criminal negligence of the ruling alliance on the natural calamities
of floods pushed the people on the edge. On the top of it all was the government’s inability to control the abduction and target killings of innocent people in Karachi and Balochistan which cost over 6000 lives in two years.

Finding themselves in deep frustration and a desperate situation, people could have fallen prey to a civil war like situation in the country when Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI) came forward with the agenda of change. PTI, lead by the cricketer-turned politician
Imran Khan, was striving to earn visibility in the country’s political arena for past 15 years. However, it was never taken seriously – neither by the politician, nor by the general public, with the youth as an exception.

Lately, various surveys, with the Gallop survey most prominent of them, pointed out that all the politicians in the country were losing credibility, and consequently, their popularity – with Imran Khan as an exception. However, it wasn’t until 30^th
October when the rally at Minar-e Pakistan made it clear that how credible and reliable Khan had become for the people in comparison to all other politicians of the country. Prior to last Sunday, Khan, often referred to as Kaptaan, had promised to summon a
tsunami of people against the corrupt ruling alliance. After observing the strength of his rally, the non-partisan political analysts stated that the promised tsunami had arrived and now, they too could smell the change pervasive in the air.

The remarks from politicians and political analysts were quite interesting. Those following their respective party lines stated that the rally had disappointed them amid the ‘low’ participation of people; while many of them went on to criticize the performance
of the famous pop-singers singing national anthems. Matter of fact, regardless of whether someone buys the idea PTI is trying to sell or not, people with their own sense of judgments are declaring it as a genuine show.

Having said this all, an important question which stares into the eyes of the people, particularly those supporting Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaaf is that will the party be able to bring in the promised ‘change’? Well, for the serious circles, it definitely is
a multi-million dollar question amid the host of challenges the PTI has still to overcome.

The first question, in this regard, is about the voters-base of the party as turning up for a rally and turning up for casting votes are two different things. Feudalism coupled with cast and clan system in Pakistan has been a decisive factor in determining
a candidate’s future during the elections. Moreover, although people across the country are fed up of traditional politicians’ indifferent view regarding their vows, yet, amid the limited outreach of PTI, only few of them are turning towards it while considering
it a viable political option. However, if Khan’s team continues with its efforts to reach to maximum number of people, and remains capable of exploiting its potential vote bank among the youth, it definitely has the spark to emerge as the prominent party by
the next elections.

As far the promised ‘change’ is concerned, there are no two opinions about the fact that Khan do have a professional team comprised of highly educated people whose honesty, dedication and love for the country is beyond doubt. Khan himself has been emerged
as a person who has always been doing apparently ‘impossible’ things for this country – after all, at one point, acquiring the cricket world cup, building a world class cancer hospital and Niml college were all ‘impossible’ for Pakistan to acquire. But in
the auspicious leadership of Imran Khan, the nation did so. Thus, there are strong reasons to believe that he can deliver on the promised ‘change’ as well.

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Posted by Fayyaz Yaseen on Nov 4 2011. Filed under Opinion, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry