Asif Mahmood

Governments are not elected merely to remain in power. They are elected to govern. Political parties can choose the politics of protest, confrontation and agitation, but a government has responsibilities that go far beyond the political interests of the party that brought it to power. This distinction becomes particularly important when a provincial government begins using its official resources and institutional strength for political protests outside its own province.

This is precisely the question that needs to be asked about September 27, when Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has once again called for a protest. There are two things that need to be looked at separately. One is Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf as a political party, and the other is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf is also in power. Political identity and governmental responsibility cannot be treated as the same thing.

A political party holds public meetings and stages protests. That is part of normal political activity. But when the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, with its own resources, goes to other provinces to create an environment for protests, the question naturally arises: what is the basic duty of a government? To do something for its people, or to remain fuel for protests all the time?

Political activities are a normal part of politics. They continue to take place, and political activities can also take the form of protests. But it has never happened that a political party turns its own government into a means of protest and, instead of spending all the strength it possesses by virtue of being in power on the welfare of the people, throws it into protests and remains trapped in a state of perpetual protest.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has a political organisation. If it has to protest, and if it has been decided that we will do nothing except protest, then that organisation can protest. But if the Chief Minister is determined to stage a protest with all the resources at his disposal, and the entire strength of the government is thrown behind it, then it raises very serious questions.

Many a time, one wishes that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government would compete with the Punjab government in the same way Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis competed with each other on the cricket field: through performance.

But if the problems in your province have become extremely frightening, and instead of paying attention to those problems, the Chief Minister of that province has set out to run a protest campaign, then what could be more unfortunate than this?

There is terrorism in Tirah. The situation regarding the police in Khyber has become extremely complicated. Bodies are being carried away almost every day because of terrorism, but the government’s priorities are something else entirely.

After the 18th Amendment, the provinces have become autonomous in many matters. In such circumstances, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government should have been telling us how modern and how much better it has made its police system. What facilities has it provided to its police? What has it done in its hospitals? What has it done in its educational institutions? What are the things and sectors in which Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is ahead of the other provinces and has performed better than them?

Its basic responsibility is not for the Chief Minister to travel sometimes to Sindh and sometimes to Punjab on government resources to demonstrate his courage in protests. His real responsibility is good governance. But good governance does not seem to be anyone’s priority here.

If someone asks, they are told that the people did not send us to show performance. The people sent us to get Khan Sahib out of jail.

And even the strategy devised to get Khan Sahib out of jail is nothing but protest, agitation and disorder.

Reasonable people within the party itself have repeatedly been saying that no matter how complicated problems in politics become, their solution is found through politics itself, not through protest. But Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has continued to keep protest as its only strategy.

No one is willing to consider what this protest has actually given them. They protested on May 9. What was the result? They protested on November 26. What was the result? Now, if they protest on September 27, what result will it produce?

There is an army of lawyers who were given a place of honour in the party in the belief that they would provide the party relief in legal matters. The result was that many lawyers reached Parliament, but the party leader could not come out of jail.

Had these matters been entrusted to people with political insight, perhaps the results would have been very different.

A politician understands politics in a way a lawyer does not. You have a government in one province. You have the challenge of good governance before you. If you had succeeded in meeting that challenge, many things would have begun resolving themselves automatically.

Certainly, it is not the case that a party should remain focused only on its government. A political party has many other matters which it has to look after. And if that political party believes that at some stage it needs to protest, then by all means, let the political party protest.

But turning the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government into the protest wing of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf is neither good for the country, nor good for the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, nor good for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.

The people gave you power. Now deliver for them.

It is absolutely wrong, and reflects a disregard for contemporary political consciousness, to say that the people did not vote for us to deliver performance.

Even if, for the sake of argument, the people did not vote for you for performance but for some other purpose, you are not the Chief Minister only for those who voted for you.

You may become Chief Minister with the votes of one political party, but once you become Chief Minister, you become the custodian of the governance of the entire province. It is your responsibility to work for the welfare and well-being of the entire province.

At that point, you cannot say that my voters voted for me for a particular purpose, and therefore I will not make good governance my priority.

A government may certainly be formed with the votes of a political party, but once a government is formed, it is no longer the government of just one political party, nor is its purpose merely to pursue the political priorities of that party.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf gained nothing from this protest before, and it will gain nothing from it in the future either.

If there is political wisdom anywhere, it should be put to use. It can prove to be a better alternative than protest.