Supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) are upset, and understandably so, at how some of their party's legislators on the National Assembly voted for the 26th constitutional amendment.
But, one can hardly blame the legislators because while Imran Khan is in jail and unable to lead the party properly because of his physical absence, where are the other leaders? What are they doing to lead the party in Imran Khan's absence apart from appearing on talk shows every day (Gohar Ali Khan) or issuing statements on social media sites such as 'X' (formerly known as Twitter) daily but not appearing in person to lead (Hammad Azhar, Sheikh Waqas Akram and others)?
Both times, the protest called by the PTI in recent weeks to press from Imran Khan's release and to oppose the amendment fizzled out just at the time when it was at its peak – and why? Because the one person leading it simply decided to head to his official residence in Islamabad and spend the next 24 hours more or less in hiding.
Then another protest was announced by party leaders on X – and when the party supporters and activists asked (and rightly so) when the leaders would make an appearance, they were told that the leaders couldn't come out in the open or they would be arrested. In fact, there was so much confusion and disarray in the party ranks that people were asking what the objective actually was – was it to press for Imran Khan's release or for access to him in jail (which is an altogether different demand?).
Now, whether this was actually a directive from Imran Khan in jail or was being made up by the leaders themselves to play it safe is difficult to know for sure – but its impact was that in the last protest called by the PTI, nothing happened – except in Karachi where a few dozen supporters came to a busy market and were promptly arrested.
Moving on to the constitutional amendment itself, there was much confusion over what the PTI's stance actually was during the run-up to its eventual passage in Parliament: Was it going to boycott it? Was it trying to be part of the process and get its objections across? (Bilawal Bhutto Zardari made it a point to mention in his speech on Monday morning before the passage of the amendment in the National Assembly that the objections raised by the PTI had been included in the draft that was being voted on) or was it simply trying to buy time to try and sabotage the passage of the amendment before the retirement date of Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa?
This confusion persisted till the morning of October 21, and by then, the party had announced that it would boycott the voting altogether. That said, a handful of its senators and some of its MNAs were present in the respective sessions.
However, by boycotting the vote – even though some of its objections were included in the final legislation – the PTI chose to reinforce its image of a party that is inflexible, not willing to work with anyone else in Parliament and in fact distrustful of the institution since, in its view, all non-PTI legislators are thieves and corrupt. It has also shown that it is a party that clearly doesn't understand how politics is done and has a policy akin to 'my way or the highway', which will never work in politics where one has to accept that sometimes compromises have to be made and that you need to meet your opponents at least halfway to get things done. Of course, given the 'help' the PTI was given when it was in government, it never had to meet anyone halfway because everything was presented to it on a silver platter – and the minute that platter was taken away, the party was ousted from power.
Now, it has to remember that the days of it being given things on silver platters are long gone – and it needs to adapt so that it can stop its supporters from thinking that they are now up a dead end and that the party is unable to translate their support and aspirations into real change in government and state policies and priorities.