Imran Khan is at it again, with or without allies. The chairman of the opposition Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) has unwittingly painted himself into a corner, again. Or is there a method to the madness?
Welcome to the confusion surrounding the most enigmatic of politicians in a country where most of them are set in pre-decided ways that typically allows them their fair – many would swear unfair – share of the pie.
To trot out a few glaring examples, there’s the wily Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of his faction of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, whose gymnastics for spoils of power any which way is legendary.
He called Benazir Bhutto, the first female chief executive the country had, unfit for rule following on his interpretation of Shariah “because she’s a woman”. In due course, Rehman was heaping praise on Bhutto for singularly doing more for Islam than her male compatriots not long after she appointed the stocky cleric head of the Kashmir Committee, which saw him trudge along countless pleasure trips abroad and secure permits for profitable business in fuel – earning him the sobriquet ‘Maulana Diesel’. He has since managed to navigate his one-dimensional power boat for spoils that usually include a couple of federal ministries currying favour with rivals as bitter as long-serving military ruler General Parvez Musharraf, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) head honcho Asif Zardari and incumbent Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to name a few!
Then, there are the Chaudhry cousins – former prime minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and ex-Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi – who know a thing or two about hitching their bandwagons with the flavour of the time, or simply keeping to themselves when the tide is high.
Even the ethnic-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement – currently, under the wood for overplaying its hand in the three-decade-long reign of its London-based supremo Altaf Hussain, who has since been jettisoned – deserves to be credited for not only knowing its political beans, but exploiting it masterfully.
Despite being at the receiving end of the powerful security establishment even in the past, the MQM quickly bounced back each time with a deft strategy pivoted on a compromise to suit the occasion and hence, benefit itself and their electorate.
All of this, it would seem, has had no bearing on how Imran Khan runs a mostly turbulent PTI ship despite the rich promise he and his party held when they sent shockwaves across the political landscape with a tremulous public meeting on October 30, 2011 in Lahore.
The Force was with him so-to-speak with a battle cry for change that propelled him to the centre-stage as Pakistanis in their millions tired of a two-party swing the better part of two decades seemed to have found their voice in him, and a party to look up to.
A half decade later, Khan and PTI appear to be pale shadows of that rainbow.
The overriding impression is that Khan is pretty much his own man, which on paper, is not such a bad idea in terms of a distinct philosophy, but not that great in the rough and tumble of Pakistani politics where we learn from an early age that there are no permanent friends or foes.
Khan can argue, of course, that he has been let down by other parties, most notably the PPP, which hoodwinked him into forging a largely sedate opposition alliance to challenge Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the Panama Papers issue that only served to revive the half dead PPP at the cost of the PTI.
Sharif’s children were named as beneficiaries/ owners of offshore wealth in the Panama Papers and an unchallenged parliamentary speech later, the PM flew out for medical treatment, staying in London for weeks before Ramadan and a sizzling summer took care of the din at home.
But then, how did Khan allow this to happen? Who and what really stopped him, for example, from taking the floor to take the fight to his nemesis when the entire country was riveted to the parliamentary challenge back in April at the peak of the Panamagate? 
The moment fleeted without so much as a whimper as a shrewd Khurshid Shah, the Opposition Leader in the National Assembly, staged a walkout – thereby giving a virtual walkover to the treasury.
A clueless – or encumbered – PTI chairman just followed Shah’s trail, later standing behind him like a poor second fiddle as the PPP leader sermonised before the media.
There’s nary a pundit who doesn’t agree that the canny Zardari-led PPP helped contain Khan under the guise of a ‘united opposition’ for the benefit of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) as a barter to derive political concessions for itself.
The ‘containment’ has been so effective that five months into the Panama eruption, the heat has almost receded into oblivion.
A chastened Khan has made a few attempts to revive it in a standalone avatar since last month, but not to much avail.
In fact, a clutch of public meetings, including ones in Lahore and Karachi, have been pretty tame affairs by PTI standards.
The comedown is hurting the party morale since it has long been considered a past master at shows of strength with the opponents mostly forced to make light of how and why roadshows mean little in the context of electability.
To be sure, Sharif has lately mocked the “popular decline” as proof that Khan’s politics has reached a dead-end – something that he studiously avoided earlier.
While there is little dispute over the bad timing and choices the PTI chairman has made since spending a great deal of time wallowing over the results of the 2013 general elections – which he projected as a farce to deny his party their due but failed at the subsequent judicial commission to clinch – an attempt at retrieving lost ground is hard to fault.
Contrary to the popular notion, a seemingly belated attempt to draw the Panama card is likely only a ruse to infuse life back into a party to reinforce its standing as the main, if not the only real, challenger to the PML-N come the 2018 elections.

*The writer is Community Editor.