It's not THE END for Imran Khan

Henry Ford went broke five times before he was successful with the Ford Motor Company. Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. Stephen King’s first novel “Carrie” was rejected 30 times by different publishers. Colonel Sanders (KFC baba ji) was turned down 1009 times before someone agreed to take up his chicken recipe. I can go on to list similar failures but then I would have overplayed the “never give-up” card just like Imran Khan did the “dhandhli” card.

At the moment, PTI azadi march seems to be heading down south unless Nawaz Sharif does something spectacularly stupid to rejuvenate the crowd and lift their mood. It was not unexpected as even before dharna began, many of the objective PTI supporters were skeptical of the idea for following reasons.

- After five years of PPP’s inactive or impotent rule (for any reason, be it judicial activism, alleged incompetence or corruption), the country is not in a good position to bear this upheaval.

- Public is perhaps not as much economically distressed as required to fuel a successful dharna.

- Public is not as much disturbed or concerned by the alleged “dhandhli” in 2013 elections and is therefore disconnected with the PTI strategy.

- If Zardari rule, despite being much more tarnished than the current PMLN government, was tolerated for five years then obviously Nawaz Sharif is facing a much less potent threat.

- Army is probably not very excited at the idea of an Imran Khan at the helm of affairs given his headstrong approach to enforce the civilian superiority.

- Imran Khan is surrounded mostly by sycophants and turncoats who will sacrifice him for their selfish gains.

- The PTI team is not experienced or trained enough to handle this kind of agitation.

- A better option would be to focus on showcasing the radical reforms implemented over the next four years.

However all is not lost and PTI can find its mojo back with a ruthless but an objective analysis of its disastrous strategy leading to this miserable failure is Islamabad.

“Negative results are just what I want. They’re just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don’t.” - Thomas Edison

Imran Khan should have realized by now that a dharna is probably not something that will be helpful in  his attempts to dethrone the house of Sharif. A mature decision at this juncture would be to accept whatever reasonable concessions Nawaz Sharif offers on electoral reforms and take a face saving exit without making any stupid victory claims. 

The PTI team should then go back to the drawing board, evaluate the sensible options at hand, talk to sincere and competent political advisors, and formulate a tranquil political strategy that does not serve only Imran Khan’s ambitions to become Prime Minister. The strategy should also respect the trust reposed in PTI by the youth and especially the KPK voters. They deserve better and even if that means Imran Khan resigning from National Assembly and taking up Chief Minister role in KPK, he should not hesitate. It will not hurt his image as a national leader to serve as a provincial leader first, before aiming at the country’s top post. 

Let Nawaz Sharif’s incompetence be vehemently exposed in comparison to KPK growth story. Based on performance, people will naturally vote for PTI and take care of rigging themselves. If electoral failure still follows in rest of the country, then may be thugs is what they deserve. PTI or Imran Khan cannot do (and should not worry) much about it. However the current strategy will have to be revised as without leveraging the performance in KPK, PTI cannot expect different results than this azadi march.

Why is the PTI Azadi March a bad idea?

Never … murder a man who is committing suicide. – Napolean Bonaparte

Before I begin my train of thoughts on PTI’s Azadi March, I must clarify that I am a firm believer in the democratic rights to carry out long marches, protests and boycotts. These are basic human rights exercised to remind the rulers that not every step they intend to take is without a contest for there are people, even if lower in number, who don’t necessarily agree to your proclaimed policy making abilities (and are well within their rights when they do so). Every policy is multi-dimensional and all the arguments, be against or in favor, carry weight. Based on multiple factors such as cognitive bias and intellect, some arguments might carry more weight to one person than the other but there are some established set of consequences for any action bearing almost similar outcomes in all environments. Right or wrong, Imran Khan has serious reservations on the way Mian Nawaz Sharif came to power and has been running the affairs since then.

PMLN government has stood firm on their intention not to let their grip loosen on the system at all evident by the bequest of leadership mantle to its next generation. One fear possibly lurking in the back of their minds is regarding the loss of royal family status at least in Punjab (they do not seem to care much about other parts of Pakistan). On the governance side, everything is piecemeal with a complete lack of a strategic vision or an understanding of the challenges that are bound to haunt us in future if no radical steps are taken. Available healthcare facilities are essentially at a very basic level breaking down every now and then due to petty disputes with doctors and paramedics. Education activism revolves around Danish Schools. Attempt to control inflation by setting up small weekly bazars. All these steps are nothing but an admission of the inability to manage a larger and integrated system. The mistakes that PMLN will commit over the course of next four years will be enough to kill any future prospects of re-election.

Similarly PTI has four years of uninterrupted free hand to manage and improve the systems in KPK province. Whether they succeed in repairing the governance fabric in the province remains to be seen but they have shown the intent by introducing structural reforms in healthcare, education, judicial and security infrastructure. It’s only a matter of time that these reforms would have borne fruit and with some effort, the positive growth stories would have gone viral in this age of incredible media coverage. If things go well, the main opposition parties like JUI (F) and ANP are staring at the possibility of substantial damage to their electorate.

On the other hand, the challenge to hold people together for more than a week will only make matters worse as PMLN is known to be a dangerously nervous opponent when thrown a formidable challenge. They might resort to a use of brute force but if they decide to hold their ground and stay put, PTI will be facing a serious credibility crisis. Persisting on the roads with harsh weather conditions in the monsoon season is fraught with problems and PTI workforce is not physically or mentally conditioned enough to withstand the difficult circumstances. There will be some who will stay there however a major part of PTI’s rally will start disappearing in a week or so. This will be an acute international level embarrassment which might set in motion an irreversible process of decline in PTI’s political capital. They will have to resort to the plan ‘A’ in any case which is KPK governance improvement. The sooner they realize this, the better it is.

Key points - Third Arrow of "Abenomics"

After two of the three planned arrows were fired in the last couple of years, Abenomics is now implementing the third part of the economic revival program commonly known as "Abenomics". The main focus of this part is structural reform of Japanese economy. 

Key Points;

- Corporate Tax reduction by 2.4% in 2014, plans to take it to 20s in several years.

- Make it mandatory to appoint outside directors- Comply or explain.

- Revamping the portfolio strategy of Government Pension Investment Fund

- Allowing start-ups to bid for government contracts, opening markets and promoting new entrants in energy, agriculture and medical services.

- Establishing National Strategic Special Zones facilitating one-window operation to set up entities.

- Select Japanese cities to be freed from building height limits.

- Womenomics encouraged with labor market reforms.