Imran Khan may not be the prime minister every Pakistani voted for, or wants. He is certainly the chief executive Pakistan needs.
Until 11 August, when he will be sworn in by ‘the now-you see him, now you don’t’ President Mamnoon Hussain, Imran Khan is prime minister-elect. He has yet to wear the hollow crown kicked within his reach by obliging fate. He has still time to spend with his cronies, exchanging ‘stories of the death of kings; /How some have been deposed; some slain in war,/Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed.’
The Pakistani general elections held on 25 July have a Shakespearian ring about them: conspiracies, intrigues, assassinations, defeats, and finally victory assured to the hero. They have been a drama played out in three consecutive acts - five years of Zardari’s PPP, followed by five years of Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N, and now, a performance by Imran Khan’s PTI.
Whatever insinuations of impropriety his detractors may secrete against Imran Khan, one has continuously eluded them - financial impropriety. Everyone knows that Imran Khan has little experience of governance beyond establishing a fine cancer hospital in Lahore, a nascent Namal College in Mianwali, and remote control stewardship of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
His skill lay in using his name as a magnet to attract funds. Only the late Sattar Edhi (Pakistan’s Mother Teresa equivalent) had comparable skills. Edhi raised money for orphans and the dead. Imran Khan’s charity extends to the sick, the illiterate, and now 200 million downtrodden, bankrupt compatriots.
Will Imran Khan’s allure still work?
Some indicators are positive. Can it be accidental that China last week publicly poured $2 billion dollars to grout Pakistan’s sinking forex reserves? Or that Imran Khan (once as anti-CPEC as Theresa May was once anti-Brexit) referred in his victory speech to China offering ‘a huge opportunity through CPEC, to use it and drive investment into Pakistan’?
In that speech, Imran Khan also asserted provocatively that the relationship with the US has hitherto been ‘one way’. Stung, the US Secretary of State Pompeo responded by warning the IMF against providing a handout to Pakistan to ‘bail out Chinese bondholders or China itself’.
Chief Executives in countries in which democracy functions (if not flourishes), usually bring experience in national governance and parliamentary practice. Imran Khan has neither. He will be an adult student in both.
The UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson once dismissed his predecessor Anthony Eden with this devastating remark: ‘Eden had an expensive education: first Eton, and then Suez.’ Imran Khan had an expensive education - at Aitchison College, Lahore: he has yet to suffer his Suez.
Aitchison is regarded as Pakistan’s Eton College. Eton has produced 19 British prime ministers. Imran Khan is Pakistan’s 19th elected prime minister. What a saga Shakespeare would have made out of this!
How will Imran Khan choose his team? He will be constrained by three Cs. His acolytes will want to be rewarded for their Constancy. His parliamentary partners will want the spoils that accrue from a Coalition. But above all, Imran Khan will search for self-less Competence. And that may prove to be the most challenging demand to satisfy.
Imran Khan has finally realised the prescient dream his wife Bushra Bibi had. He has reached the top of what Disraeli described as ‘the greasy pole.’ He has until 2023 to perfect his balance. And after that, which fourth C should he expect? Shakespeare’s King Henry VI had the answer: ‘My crown is in my heart, not on my head; not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, nor to be seen: my crown is called Content, a crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.’
© F. S. AIJAZUDDIN
[The Tribune, Chandigarh, 5 August 2018]
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