Umair Khan Niazi
Political parties earn success because of popular leader and functional organization. Even more critical than a popular political leader is the organization of a political party. Organized political parties neither lack leadership nor break up due to trying circumstances. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has never been an organized political party. The word movement ” Tehreek” is the opposite of organization. Tehreek-e-Insaaf has been run by Imran Khan as a movement instead of a political party, and because of this, it is difficult to run the ideological struggle. Ideological struggles require organized and grassroots political parties. While the popularity of Imran Khan and Tehreek-e-Insaf is close to 70 per cent, the lacklustre political activities of Tehreek-e-Insaf are only due to weak organization.
The future of Tehreek-e-Insaf depends on solid organization. Tehreek-e-Insaf has been inducting electables like all other political parties in Pakistan. Although now the electables of Tehreek-e-Insaf are leaving the party, Tehreek-e-Insaf needs to be organized. The first rule of organizing should be to separate party officials and organizers from candidates contesting elections. Party officials should only do organizational work. Now it cannot be appropriate that the provincial president is also a candidate to become the province’s chief minister. To organize Tehreek-e-Insaaf, ISF must be organized first. Student politics is banned in Pakistan. However, to the extent of social interaction, Tehreek-e-Insaaf can easily be organized in public and private colleges, universities and other educational institutions. Afterwards, the women’s wing should be organized up to the district level. In Pakistan, the small and medium business class plays an essential role in the election due to its majority in towns and cities. Accordingly, PTI should strengthen its business and traders wing.
Along with this, there is a need to strengthen the (Farmer) Kisan Wing, Youth Wing, Overseas Wing and General Wing of the population. Ground facts are not favourable for Tehreek-e-Insaaf. Therefore, there is an urgent need to connect through social media instead of traditional communicational tools. The proper use of social media technology has become more substantial than the traditional methods of social interaction. The lawyers’ wing is vital for Tehreek-e-Insaf. Lawyers can be the best candidates for Tehreek-e-Insaaf. If lawyers are candidates, at least they will avoid disqualification from the courts as compared to ordinary citizens during these testing times. Minority wing of PTI can also be important. There are five million minority voters in Punjab, mostly the Christians and almost the same in Sindh, mostly the Hindus. Therefore, organizing these 10 million votes shall also be critical for the outcome of PTI electoral victories. It is also equally significant to form little, small but meaningful political alliances with organizations, groups and political parties. The electoral alliances with religious parties like those of JI and TLP can also strengthen the political campaign of PTI. Hence, PTI needs political alliances because Pakistan is a federation and it requires a federal party to take federal voices together.
Tehreek-e-Insaf requires a new administrative structure for the political party. This is also significant because Imran Khan may face disqualification or punishment during trials of various indictments. Tehreek-e-Insaf should establish a robust, transparent and loyal core committee and hand over powers to it. Tehreek-e-Insaf should revise and organize its constitution in line with multiple challenges. Instead of giving powers to a person or a body of persons, the powers should be given to the Core Committee. It does not matter whether the members of the Core Committee are inside the country or abroad. The technological connection is so advanced that all and sundry can easily be connected. There is no other leader in Tehreek-e-Insaf after Imran Khan. The core committee should take decisions of Tehreek-e-Insaf representing Imran Khan. The same core committee shall have direct or indirect authority to elect national, provincial, regional and district office bearers. It should also have the power to nominate electoral candidates. It is imperative to organize Tehreek-e-Insaaf through all wings up to the Union Council level, considering the constituency delimitation. A membership campaign can also be done for this purpose. Considering the popularity of Tehreek-e-Insaaf, one month will be enough to organize Tehreek-e-Insaaf. The organization is easy when the leader and party are popular. The organization is not an arduous developmental task but rather an arrangement.
Tehreek-e-Insaaf needs to be organized to contest elections. There are also rumours of banning Tehreek-e-Insaaf. In such a situation, more than two political parties of Imran Khan should be registered with the Election Commission so that another political party can contest the election in case of a ban. Tehreek-e-Insaf should field at least develop five candidates from each constituency. Pakistan has 266 National Assembly seats, and Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, and Balochistan have 297, 115, 130 and 65 seats respectively. Therefore, a pool of 5,000 candidates should be organized for 958 NA and PA seats. This pool of 5000 will be enough to contest elections by Tehreek-e-Insaf or any other political party representing PTI. Imran Khan’s popularity is between 60 to 70 per cent across Pakistan, according to recent surveys, including that of republicpolicy.com. Therefore, to realize this popularity into concrete execution, only a better and more functional organization is needed. Furthermore, the core committee members, officials and Imran Khan should be the identical angles of the same picture. In the politics of Pakistan, trusting a person or persons is political suicide. Therefore, the core committee shall produce better results.
Finally, constituency politics is the method of electioneering in Pakistan due to the Parliamentary form of governance. Every constituency is essential to win the elections. Accordingly, contesting each and every constituency is vital, especially when the party and leader are so popular. Therefore, it is critical that the symbol of a bat or any other symbol representing Imran Khan must be printed on the ballot paper of each and every constituency from the perspective of PTI. This is the foremost challenge of PTI to get printed on the ballot paper of each constituency. If this happens, the ideological voter of Tehreek-e-Insaaf will definitely vote for his party. Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s ideological voters must be large enough to compete, according to multiple political surveys. According to an estimate, out of 12 crore voters in Pakistan, approximately six crore voters will exercise their right to vote. Out of these six crore voters, two crore voters may belong to Tehreek-e-Insaf. Therefore, contesting from each constituency and building national and constituency campaigns are vital for PTI.
The upcoming elections in Pakistan are the most complicated elections for every party. The party with better organizational and administrative skills and structures will get better results, provided the elections are transparent and fair. Lastly, PTI and Imran Khan are popular with between 60 to 70 per cent; if they can not win seats according to their popularity, it shall only be due to the poor and weak organization of PTI. Undoubtedly, it is challenging for them; then, they are also popular and deciding factor is the organization of PTI. Rather, the success of PTI is directly proportionate to the level of its organization.
