Pakistan Tehreek –E-Insaf , as expected lost by a big margin providing a landslide victory to MQM in NA-246 of Karachi. Two statements are worth mentioning here, before the 2013 general elections, the infamous Haroon Rasheed said on a television channel that “No one can defeat PTI , but PTI itself, its PTI vs PTI “. The second statement was given yesterday by a resident of NA 246, he said ‘MQM and its supporters should thank PTI, because it provided a platform for the Mahijr card to be played rightly, it united the otherwise depleting Muhajir vote bank in favor of MQM.
Humiliating defeat of PTI is due to various reasons, firstly if the central leadership of PTI is willing to contest more elections in Karachi then it should retire the entire Karachi cabinet of PTI, and reconstitute it on the basis of merit, and yes money is also a merit in Pakistani politics.
Wrong Strategy
It’s been 20 years already, and we still wonder how many more years will PTI take to realize the dynamics of Karachi. PTI and its leadership fail to realize the presence of MQM vote bank. This election campaign was based on confrontation and was poorly strategized by people who never left the elitist lanes of Defense and Clifton. Faisal Vodka … Wada actually, Samar Ali Khan, Firdous Naqvi and Najeeb Haroon are as naïve when it comes to Karachi as Meera about English. They are and they should be just treated as the financial muscle and their opinions about the on ground situation should have been taken as a used toilet roll.
It should have been rather a sales pitch then confrontation. Common sense suggests that when Pakistani team goes to play home serious in Australia, they don’t enter in the stadium showing middle fingers and spitting on the crowd. They appreciate every good innings by the home team and every good fielding attempt. And who knows this fact more than Mr. Imran Khan himself.
The campaign should have been strategized not on confrontation but on compensation. PTI should have begged the voters rather then harassing them. It should have been more about winning the hearts of the people, winning their sympathies but the Karachi cabinet, mentioned above, who knew nothing about Karachi, wrongly advised the party and wrongly paced the campaign.
It was not at all a serious effort by PTI, there was not a single person responsible for the campaign, no campaign design was present, and PTI did not even cover the entire constituency. There was no plan to use media wisely, no gimmick and no high point in the campaign. This non serious attitude by the seniors of PTI is enough to disappoint those who expect from PTI.
Caste & Class Differentiation.
NA 246 was not defense, it is an area where lower middle class of the populous resides. When PTI entered in the locality under heavy security, police protocols, multi million SUVs and personal guards, they were actually posing a threat to the poor residents of NA 246. The voters in the constituency despise police and rangers because of their previous experiences. They are not impressed by the gunmen and expensive vehicle. The residents know this as a fact that these are symbols of the all mighty capitalistic mafia that has been violating their rights since the very beginning. Fact is Imran Ismail should not have used the police protocols.
Secondly, if a Karachite is on stage or if he is leading Imran khan’s car in Peshawar, then the residents of Peshawar would object to it, and rightly so. When they have competent leadership in Peshawar then why the campaign is lead by people that are not local.
On ground the election campaign of Imran Ismail was being run by the very courageous ISF, but whenever Imran khan came or Imran Ismail rallied, a bunch of ex-ANP members are neither registered in NA 246 as voters hogged around the leadership.
I wonder why PTI leadership does not understand this fact, even when they have a very highly competent leadership of ISF, which are local boys plus they have proven their metal in the past and also in this campaign. Everything from the Election Day preparations and the Aisha manzil Jalsa were the effort of ISF Karachi.
The Selfie Camp
If MQM says that on the day of Ayesha Manzil Jalsa, no youth of Karachi was present on the stage with Imran Khan, it would not be wrong. There is a dubious group in PTI, those who are not known, not seen on ground, they are and were not present in the camps but just like Nazia Rabbani, Samar Ali Khan , Najeeb Haroon and Firdous Shameem Naqvi and Faisal Vada, they only appear when Imran Khan arrives and in this case they appeared whenever Imran Ismail rallied.
If we try to sum up the cause for the humiliating defeat of PTI, they are wrong direction of election campaign and wrong strategy , or no strategy at all, the caste and class difference which effected most of the voters in NA 246, and a bunch of no good financiers, who knows nothing about the dynamics of Karachi, but they surely know how to take a selfie. Mind you, all these mistakes, if weren’t there, would not have made PTI won the constituency, but it surely have saved the party from humiliation, plus the constituency was and still is of MQM.
Every experience has something to learn from it. The PTI high command should start taking Karachi seriously; they should know the difference between the doer, the selfie camp and the financier. If actions are not taken soon, PTI would lose what it actually thinks they have, people’s support.
