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Fissure Within Imran’s Party Widens

This was a defeat that Imran Khan had feared but not expected in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa since his relationship began to sour with the military establishment early this year, reports Asian Lite News

The internal rift in Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is widening especially after party’s defeat in local elections of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa.

Amid these cracks in the party, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Higher Education Minister Kamran Bangash has served a legal notice to his own party leader Arbab Mohammad Ali for accusing him of selling ticket of Peshawar city Mayor to a businessman, media reported.

The KP minister on Tuesday had served a legal notice on Ali after he was accused of selling ticket of Peshawar city Mayor to a wealthy businessman and receiving 20 million Pakistani rupees out of the total amount, 70 million Pakistani rupees, according to The News International report on Thursday.

ALSO READ: Imran’s hybrid regime is crumbling

Ali is the brother of PTI MNA from Peshawar, Arbab Sher Ali and cousin of Arbab Shehzad, advisor to Prime Minister Imran Khan on Establishment.

He had applied for the PTI ticket for Peshawar Mayor seat but the party didn’t consider and instead gave the ticket to an Abu Dhabi-based businessman Rizwan Bangash, India Blooms reported.

Kamran Bangash (Credit: Twitter/Kamran Bangash)

Later, Ali released a video alleging that some senior PTI leaders including Governor Shah Farman and Higher Education Minister Kamran Bangash had sold party ticket to Rizwan Bangash for Rs70 million.

However, Rizwan lost the Mayor poll to the joint candidate of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazlur Rahman (JUIF), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), and Qaumi Watan Party (QWP).

According to The News International, though there were multiple factors behind Rizwan’s loss but disunity of the PTI leadership and particularly the role of the party’s elected representatives were major reasons.

Crack in PTI, Army relations

The defeat of PTI in local elections of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa shows a clear sign of crack between the military establishment and the ruling party.

Khan’s ascendancy to the Islamabad throne was made possible by the army, especially Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI and is often referred to as the hybrid regime showed signs of crumbling after the resounding defeat of PTI, reported The Singapore Post.

This was a defeat that Khan had feared but not expected in KP since his relationship began to sour with the military establishment early this year.

But the army quietly looked the other way and let the pins fall on the PTI candidates. This is the second round of the battle between partners of the hybrid regime.

In a first, Imran Khan had shown the military down by deliberately delaying the announcement of the appointment of ISI chief. The Army chief wanted a change in who heads the ISI early this year. The army declared Lt Gen Nadeem Ahmed Anjum as the new ISI chief whereas Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, who had helped Imran Khan to win the electoral battles on behalf of the army, was moved out as Peshawar corps commander.

Imran Khan sat on the Army chief’s recommendation till rumours and conspiracy theories became thick enough to be cut with a blunt knife. Khan mulled all the options–to reject the army chief’s recommendations or to accept them. He chose the third option–delay the official declaration. It showed he was no longer in the same books as General Javed Bajwa.

The army took the insult and kept quiet, reported The Singapore Post.

The army played its hand in the KP elections. There could be many reasons for the PTI to get such a drubbing on the ground, but one remains the key to the game, the army’s decision to stay off any of the tricks which it deployed in the 2018 elections. This ‘hands off’ policy left PTI candidates to fight on their own and lose badly.

Protest over national security policy

Senators belonging to the Opposition parties in Pakistan resorted to protest on Wednesday over the governments decision to bypass the Parliament in the making of the National Security Policy (NSP) approved earlier this week, Express Tribune reported.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Sherry Rehman said the government did not present the draft of the security policy in the House. The PPP leader said the policy that has been approved is nothing but a piece of paper that is contrary to the ground realities, the report said.

She further criticised the government over a Bill that provides complete autonomy to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in line with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) demands. Sherry asked what sort of security is the government talking about when the IMF is dictating the economy, and the SBP is being sublet.

Imran Khan (Photo IN)

The PPP Senator’s speech was interrupted by a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senator, Mohsin Aziz, who advised her to get straight to the point instead of making a speech. Rehman took offence to the remarks and staged a walkout in protest.

National Security Advisor (NSA) Moeed Yusuf had announced on Tuesday that the federal cabinet has approved Pakistan’s first-ever National Security Policy (NSP).

“It is a truly historic achievement; a citizen-centric comprehensive National Security policy with economic security at the core will now be pursued in earnest,” the NSA said in a tweet.

A day earlier, it was reported that the National Security Committee (NSC) approved the NSP 2022-2026, which aims at bolstering the country’s economic security and tackling external as well as internal challenges. (with inputs from IANS/ANI)

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THIS KHAN IS NOT WORKING

Instead of getting down to tackle these tremendous challenges, Imran Khan has been more busy tongue-lashing his own diplomats, squabbling with his country’s staunch supporter in Saudi Arabia, suppressing media outlets and making millions of minorities in his country feel as infidels … writes Dr Shariq Khan

It took only thirty-odd months for Prime Minister Imran Khan to sink in the quicksand of eroding public confidence in his capability to steer Pakistan through one of its most challenging times. Pakistan is today faced with an economic meltdown, worst-ever global perception, serious internal conflicts and a raging epidemic.

Instead of getting down to tackle these tremendous challenges, Imran Khan has been more busy tongue-lashing his own diplomats, squabbling with his country’s staunch supporter in Saudi Arabia, suppressing media outlets and making millions of minorities in his country feel as infidels.

It was known for some time that the Prime Minister had lost the script and was acting more like a ventriloquist’s doll. Recent events show that he was being abandoned by his patrons in Rawalpindi as well.

The latest broadside against him has come from within his own party–one of his erstwhile confidant, Jahangir Tareen, has fallen out with him and has decided to form a breakaway group, raising questions about the legitimacy of his government to rule. Although Tareen has since denied breaking away from PTI, the claims and counterclaims indicate a rift within Imran Khan’s party which could undo the government faster than a yorker.

A more visible dissonance can be detected in Khan’s relationship with army chief General Javed Bajwa. Bajwa has been instrumental in putting Khan in Islamabad and has since chaperoned his protege out of trouble on numerous occasions. During the peak of the economic crisis, Bajwa stepped in himself to encourage the industry leaders to invest in Pakistan. He placed one of his confidants in the CPEC management to ensure steady progress of the ambitious project with China. At the diplomatic level, Bajwa and his team have been moving, at quick intervals, to sort out the mess created by Khan or his Foreign Minister. Be it Saudi Arabia or the US, it is Bajwa who has been acting more like a premier than the elected one.

Imran Khan and his government see Riyadh as a stumbling block in the way of Pakistan’s rise as an Islamic power. For the moment, Bajwa has managed to smoothen the ruffled feathers in Riyadh but is obviously miffed at taking on new troubles on behalf of the government.

Now, even Bajwa seems to be tired of showing his protege where to go. This has been nowhere else evident than in the case of India. In March this year, Bajwa made it public that the army was thinking of diverting some of its attention from India to more urgent problems like the economy and Afghanistan. It was therefore important, he made it known, that a semblance of peace be maintained with India. It is not clear how well or how much did the General tell his Prime Minister. Going by what happened afterwards, it became clear that at least Khan and his ministers did not get the full import of what the General had imagined. They saw a booming trade with India and made a loud sound about it, only to do a quick u-turn. The Foreign Minister went one step ahead and made utterances which were no less than blasphemous in Pakistan.

More retractions followed. Then there is the case of Saudi Arabia. Prime Minister Khan, in collaboration with his friend in Istanbul, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been advocating a new Islamic bloc to counter Saudi Arabia’s leadership of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC). Bajwa and the army, on the other hand, are keen to keep Riyadh happy and trusting–the relationship is too deep and long to be abandoned at this crucial hour, at least for the army. Imran Khan and his government see Riyadh as a stumbling block in the way of Pakistan’s rise as an Islamic power. For the moment, Bajwa has managed to smoothen the ruffled feathers in Riyadh but is obviously miffed at taking on new troubles on behalf of the government.

On the political front, the army has a different playbook than Imran Khan. Shahbaz Sharif is the elephant in the room. The younger Sharif has been close to the army and last year when he was tested Covid positive, Bajwa had personally called him to enquire about his health. For all his failings, Imran Khan will not be an easy pushover but, as the public humiliation of the diplomatic community showed, he could tie himself in knots. That could prove to be his final undoing.