Five Factors That Will Determine Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Odds of Winning 2023
Published at : October 02, 2021
Five Factors That Will Determine Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Odds of Winning 2023 - 28 September 2021 - Ahmed Shameel #Shorts News
Prime Minister Imran Khan has a lot more power than his critics may give him credit for, and he has used this power to make five bets that are going to define the country’s fortunes and his own political future in the short and medium term.
First, PM Khan has bet on Shaukat Tarin’s growth-above-all approach to the economy. I am a big fan, as I was in 2016, when Ishaq Dar had delivered the same thing. The early returns from this approach are also not surprising. Pakistan’s current account deficit is growing and without US dollar denominated, concessional gap financing, the growth story will barely begin before it begins to asphyxiate in the absence of US dollars.
Where Tarin will generate the forex needed to sustain this growth-at-all-costs approach is a mystery – given the hardball that the Biden Administration seems to want to play with Pakistan. But if PM Khan manages to register better than expected growth, he will have pulled off a small heist with a big potential political payoff in 2022-2023.
Second, PM Khan has bet on an unequal and unstable political equilibrium in Punjab as a necessary instrument of his sustaining the power to fight and win the next general election (most likely in 2023). This equilibrium has necessitated the appointment of Usman Buzdar as chief minister – a ridiculous choice that is redeemable only if one understands that any other choice would have already produced a change in government at the centre. Buzdar may not be much, in terms of governance, or performance, or even presentation – but he is everything PM Khan needs to ensure his tricky triple balance in Punjab.
The unseen hand of politics that delivered Punjab to him, the PML-Q’s easy load and portable loyalty, and the conglomerate of petit bourgeoisie mafiosos that make up part of the PTI ‘core’ in Lahore were all vying for the CM role. By denying this role to the traditional power brokers of southern Punjab, the Chaudhrys of Gujarat and the Aleem Khans and Jahangir Tareens of the PTI, PM Khan has established an unstable but manageable equation in Punjab. The cost? Every governance failure in Takht-e-Lahore reminds people of what Buzdar has replaced. But this cost is mitigated by PM Khan’s third bet.
The third bet PM Khan has made is that the Generation Z voter in Punjab will convert into the Generation Z voter of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – ie she or he will lean PTI when push comes to shove. PM Khan is hoping that young voters are so excited by his brand of politics, and so disgusted or disenchanted with the Sharifs, that they will turn out to vote PTI in numbers – regardless of how badly the PTI governs in Punjab. This is a risky bet, but it is rooted in Kaptaan’s belief that a relentless branding of all other political options in the country as corrupt, and a tireless marketing of the PTI’s every failure as a legacy of the traditional political parties is one that will prevail among the 18-34-year-old voters that he needs to win the 2023 general election.
The risk inherent in this strategy was on stark display at the Cantonment Board polls in Punjab recently, where a bruised and bleeding PML-N managed to eke out a substantial set of victories. If the Cantt Board populace is still smitten by that Nawaz Sharif magic, what hope does the PTI have in Gujranwala, Sialkot, and Lahore? This may represent the most substantial risks among the bets PM Khan has made.
The fourth bet that PM Khan seems to have made, is that right-leaning populism is a more certain political bargain than progressive realism. Many attribute the regular stream of gaffes that PM Khan seems to make – on issues like the Taliban and what they stand for, or what constitutes the core of women’s rights and sexual abuse, or on the definition of Pakhtun nationalism – to PM Khan’s sketchy understanding of facts, and of history. But the frequency and regularity of these gaffes demands an alternative theory to help explain this seemingly constant appeal to the Pakistani right wing.
#Short #AhmedShameelNews #AhmedShameel #AShameelK #AhmedShameelK #ASNews #ASEnglishNews #ShameelKhokhar #ShameelKhokharNews #SKNews #SKEnglishNews #ASUrduNews #SKUrduNews #PakistanNews #IslamNews #WorldNews #SportsNews #ASSports #ASSportsNews #LIVE #BreakingNews #Breaking #Latest #LatestNews #Viral #ViralNews
Facebook:
http://fb.com/ahmedshameelk
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/shameel_khokhar
Prime Minister Imran Khan has a lot more power than his critics may give him credit for, and he has used this power to make five bets that are going to define the country’s fortunes and his own political future in the short and medium term.
First, PM Khan has bet on Shaukat Tarin’s growth-above-all approach to the economy. I am a big fan, as I was in 2016, when Ishaq Dar had delivered the same thing. The early returns from this approach are also not surprising. Pakistan’s current account deficit is growing and without US dollar denominated, concessional gap financing, the growth story will barely begin before it begins to asphyxiate in the absence of US dollars.
Where Tarin will generate the forex needed to sustain this growth-at-all-costs approach is a mystery – given the hardball that the Biden Administration seems to want to play with Pakistan. But if PM Khan manages to register better than expected growth, he will have pulled off a small heist with a big potential political payoff in 2022-2023.
Second, PM Khan has bet on an unequal and unstable political equilibrium in Punjab as a necessary instrument of his sustaining the power to fight and win the next general election (most likely in 2023). This equilibrium has necessitated the appointment of Usman Buzdar as chief minister – a ridiculous choice that is redeemable only if one understands that any other choice would have already produced a change in government at the centre. Buzdar may not be much, in terms of governance, or performance, or even presentation – but he is everything PM Khan needs to ensure his tricky triple balance in Punjab.
The unseen hand of politics that delivered Punjab to him, the PML-Q’s easy load and portable loyalty, and the conglomerate of petit bourgeoisie mafiosos that make up part of the PTI ‘core’ in Lahore were all vying for the CM role. By denying this role to the traditional power brokers of southern Punjab, the Chaudhrys of Gujarat and the Aleem Khans and Jahangir Tareens of the PTI, PM Khan has established an unstable but manageable equation in Punjab. The cost? Every governance failure in Takht-e-Lahore reminds people of what Buzdar has replaced. But this cost is mitigated by PM Khan’s third bet.
The third bet PM Khan has made is that the Generation Z voter in Punjab will convert into the Generation Z voter of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – ie she or he will lean PTI when push comes to shove. PM Khan is hoping that young voters are so excited by his brand of politics, and so disgusted or disenchanted with the Sharifs, that they will turn out to vote PTI in numbers – regardless of how badly the PTI governs in Punjab. This is a risky bet, but it is rooted in Kaptaan’s belief that a relentless branding of all other political options in the country as corrupt, and a tireless marketing of the PTI’s every failure as a legacy of the traditional political parties is one that will prevail among the 18-34-year-old voters that he needs to win the 2023 general election.
The risk inherent in this strategy was on stark display at the Cantonment Board polls in Punjab recently, where a bruised and bleeding PML-N managed to eke out a substantial set of victories. If the Cantt Board populace is still smitten by that Nawaz Sharif magic, what hope does the PTI have in Gujranwala, Sialkot, and Lahore? This may represent the most substantial risks among the bets PM Khan has made.
The fourth bet that PM Khan seems to have made, is that right-leaning populism is a more certain political bargain than progressive realism. Many attribute the regular stream of gaffes that PM Khan seems to make – on issues like the Taliban and what they stand for, or what constitutes the core of women’s rights and sexual abuse, or on the definition of Pakhtun nationalism – to PM Khan’s sketchy understanding of facts, and of history. But the frequency and regularity of these gaffes demands an alternative theory to help explain this seemingly constant appeal to the Pakistani right wing.
#Short #AhmedShameelNews #AhmedShameel #AShameelK #AhmedShameelK #ASNews #ASEnglishNews #ShameelKhokhar #ShameelKhokharNews #SKNews #SKEnglishNews #ASUrduNews #SKUrduNews #PakistanNews #IslamNews #WorldNews #SportsNews #ASSports #ASSportsNews #LIVE #BreakingNews #Breaking #Latest #LatestNews #Viral #ViralNews
Facebook:
http://fb.com/ahmedshameelk
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/shameel_khokhar
Islam NewsPakistan NewsWorld News