... aka
Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems...
has tapped into a vein of popular discontent against the status quo that isn`t limited to the
Punjab heartland or the Pashtun belts. The rally also had a very different vibe to other political events in Bloody Karachi, there being an air of celebration and goodwill that only infrequently marks politics in the turbulent city.Disappointing, though, was the lack of any serious policy prescriptions. Imran Khan did talk about the goal of establishing an `Islamic welfare society` but mentioned virtually no details. Mr Khan talked of a revolutionary system of service delivery based on computerisation and information technology but where will the concrete plans and implementation come from? The former IT minister who has recently joined the PTI, Azam Swati, doesn`t have a particularly strong track record in getting things done. On taxation, an issue Mr Khan has talked much about (and rightly so), the PTI chief also did not have any suggestions for nudging upwards the disastrously low tax-to-GDP ratio. Does the PTI endorse a meaningful agricultural income tax or support the reforms of the sales tax system? No answers were provided. Given the politicians with diverse, if not opposing, foreign policy briefs in the past that have been inducted into the PTI, what will the PTI`s foreign policy look like? Again, silence.
The broader question: is the PTI set to become a mishmash of the views of the disparate traditional politicians who have been inducted into the party recently or will Imran Khan`s `vision`, to the extent one was discernible before, still be the guid-ing principle of the party? The PTI`s core still seems to be the `new voter`, whether young voters or previously politically inactive citizens disillusioned with the status quo. As Mr Khan works to bring `electables` on board, how will the core PTI supporter respond? Only this is clear: a fascinating election lies ahead.