The party is expected to launch another street movement, announced earlier by KP Chief Minister Sohail Afridi.
A boy waves a PTI flag and gestures during a rally in support of former Prime Minister Imran Khan in Islamabad on April 10. REUTERS
LAHORE:
With the political horizon getting darker, the PTI appears to be looking for a way out to gain breathing room, and some in the party claim that its proposals are currently limited to taking a carefully calibrated position on security issues, an attempt to send subtle signals in the hope that the establishment will pick up on these signals and meet them halfway.
The party’s central information secretary, however, categorically rejected such an interpretation.
At the same time, PTI appears to be hedging its bets. The party is expected to launch another street movement – previously announced by KP Chief Minister Sohail Afridi – and has summoned its MPs to Peshawar, where the contours of the campaign are likely to be defined.
However, the announcement has caused unrest within the ranks, with many seeing it as a well-worn path as similar exercises over the past three years have produced little more than sound and fury. Afridi, along with PTI general secretary Salman Akram Raja and Asad Qaiser, is expected to lead the deliberations.
Party Central Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram said he was not aware of the plan finalized by the KP CM and his team.
Talking about the party’s stance on foreign policy issues, he said the party’s decisions are taken in the best interest of the country. This idea did not even cross our minds when these political decisions were being finalized. He said the party would continue its democratic struggle within the ambit provided to it by Imran Khan.
He added that Imran Khan himself had made it clear on several occasions that they were not against state interests in any way and that the party was the complete owner of state institutions. However, he stressed that this should not be confused with the policy recently adopted by the party.
However, a Punjab leader, speaking to The Express PAkGazette on condition of anonymity, said that in KP the party had differences with the establishment over dealings with Afghanistan, but once the government took a final stand, it openly backed the state’s actions.
In addition, he said, the party also welcomed the government’s mediation efforts between Iran and the United States.
According to him, this was the PTI’s way of signaling to the establishment that it was time to put an end to any misgivings. He further admitted that Tehreek-e-Tahafuz Aain-e-Pakistan had not given the PTI any progress on any front.
He said the current leadership of the party, incumbent in every sense of the word, had very limited authority to make key policy decisions and therefore nothing significant was expected of them either.
He added that the only bargaining chip available to the PTI was its ability to restore the establishment’s tarnished credibility among the masses.
Another central leadership leader admitted there were growing concerns about the party’s political future in the upcoming elections.
He said that even if the establishment granted the PTI an open field today, it would still take between twelve and eighteen months for it to resolve its multiple legal battles, meaning the window for a comeback in the next elections was rapidly closing.
He added that in his view, the PTI could not even get close to the establishment given the widening gulf between them.
He further said that several leaders wanted active mediation efforts to be initiated at some level.
