“You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.”
– Fight Club, the movie (1999)
Ordinariness is a cloak we must all reluctantly drape across our shoulders. Even those among us who believe they are cut from a different cloth. The evidence to disabuse us of our pretensions lies littered across the land. It provides a sombre context for the moment that is upon us – again.
The moment gyrates around a familiar predicament: how to manifest the people’s verdict into a desired electoral outcome. This familiarity has become so familiar it breeds contempt no more. Just a resigned sigh. If that. In fact, such is the cyclical nature of this predicament that the looming electoral battle is beginning to mirror previous ones in spirit, if not entirely in letter. Or is it the letter too?
Consider the shifting roles of protagonists and antagonists in the back-and-forth of our political saga. There is a constant: the establishment. Then there is the party aligned with the establishment, followed by the antagonist opposing the other two. Since at least the 1970 elections, this triangular formulation of wins and losses has played out in living colour. It has also produced a recurring series of outcomes whose primary lesson is that few lessons have been learnt.
The parties of the PDM are smug about transitioning from being antagonists to protagonists, but the harshness of what lies ahead appears lost to them
With each successive formulaic cycle, though, the outcome falls short of delivering what it is conceivably meant to deliver. The magnificent implosion of Project Imran is a traumatic reiteration of this reality. A reality, though, may not always appear real. The parties of the PDM are smug about transitioning from being antagonists to protagonists, but the harshness of what lies ahead appears lost to them. The reason lies deep inside the complex evolution of this political triangularity.
Project Imran was an inorganic by-product of the establishment’s desire to sculpt the political matrix to its liking. The contours of this liking - shorn of the caricatures so many prefer to impose on them - may have included the following: (1) break the monopoly of traditional parties, (2) dismantle the political status quo of the system typified by political dynasts, (3) replace the adversarial relationship between PML-N (as the dominant party) and the establishment by placing in power a party on the same page as the establishment.
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Taken together, these three primary reasons (in addition to numerous secondary ones) led to the conception and birth of Project Imran. The means used to conduct this cesarean delivery involved generous use of the scalpel. Much political blood was shed. Many umbilical cords were cut.
But then the baby went rogue.
In the ops room, the establishmentarians pulled out a thick file titled “Rogue Babies & What To Do About Them” and started leafing through well-thumbed pages. Been there, done that, many figured. Standard operating procedures kicked in, and the rest is, as they say, a well-told story echoing through the decades past.
And yet, there may be a twist.
Amid the pile of broken bodies and scarred souls, among the mass of shredded dreams and shattered ambitions, there lies in this bloodied arena a contradiction that is growing stronger by the hour
The fight club is where it is at. Amid the pile of broken bodies and scarred souls, among the mass of shredded dreams and shattered ambitions, there lies in this bloodied arena a contradiction that is growing stronger by the hour. This contradiction belies the predictable rhythm of triangularity. It may also defy the norm.
The norm says protagonists have won. This despite the odds stacked against them prior to the dreadful events of May 9. The norm says the ebb and flow of triangularity dynamics have produced the expected outcome yet again and that the antagonists – Imran Khan and his party in this moment – must survive this cyclical torment and wait for the wheel to turn its course before they can hope to transform themselves back into protagonists.
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The norm also says the PDM has prevailed. This despite the wild popularity of their opponent and the backbreaking inflation of the last sixteen months. The norm says power has manifested the rawness of its nature in the post-May 9 reality, and this raw power will define the broad contours of the rules of who rules Pakistan. The windscreen, it appears, has become the rearview mirror.
And that’s when the contradiction hits you like a punch in the gut.
The popularity of Imran Khan has undone him.
The unpopularity of the PDM has saved it
The popularity of Imran Khan has undone him. The unpopularity of the PDM has saved it. Digest this for a moment. Khan misread triangularity dynamics and is now coughing blood in the fight club. Shehbaz leveraged the same dynamics and is now circling his downed opponent with a raised fist. Khan may be stretchered out of the ring, and Shehbaz raised up on celebratory shoulders, but the contradiction embedded within will not evaporate into this sweaty ambience. It will, in all likelihood, chase the winners across the electoral threshold.
It may matter less to Khan in the short term. He is out of the arena and will remain so for now. He has let power slip through his fingers because he could not overcome the flaws in his strategy, policy and personality.
It matters more to the PML-N, PPP and their allies. They remain in the arena and will likely return to it after the polls. They have won, but they have not earned this victory. It has been presented to them on a silver platter. PDM did not land the knockout punch on PTI. Yet it gets the medal. This unearned victory may have consequences. It could cost them.
It could also cost the electorate.
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Flawed as he is, Imran Khan scared the living daylights out of the PDM parties. He weaponised the electorate like PDM could not, and he nuclearised communication like PDM could not. Khan was actually on to something until he blew it. He blew it because he took his eye off the ball and overestimated his strength, and he burdened himself with a useless group of sycophants who lacked both character and wisdom. He shot himself, and they dug his political grave.
But while Khan lost the game, PDM runs the risk of losing the plot. Were it not for the prudence and sure-footedness of Shehbaz Sharif and the deftness with which he navigated the political minefield, PDM would have been beaten to a pulp in the electoral fight club. Khan forced the traditional parties to reluctantly face their internal demons; he forced them to grudgingly acknowledge their weaknesses and their disconnect with a young electorate; and he forced them to recognise that they had to grow out of the 1990s if they wanted to give him resistance.
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With him floored by a punch that did not come from them, they have little incentive to do all this. Purana Pakistan cannot win over a Naya electorate if it does not understand the principal contradiction therein. The weaknesses and serious capacity issues of the PDM parties are a reality they are loathe to face up to. By winning a victory they have not earned, these parties may re-acquire power, but they may not re-acquire the urgency of internal reform that Khan had scared them into executing.
The triangularity survives for now. But the writing is on the fight club’s wall.