Thread by @WajSKhan

Full disclosure for this thread: I don't vote. I follow the old ethical tenet that journalists & judges shouldn't vote.

Exactly two years ago, I was excited to see @ImranKhanPTI win an election & assume the helm of affairs in Pakistan, the country of my birth.

So although...

...I didn't vote, I was still excited to see him win.

Why?

See, with the 2018 polls @ImranKhanPTI had done what few politicians can do: he'd broken a system.

In this case, Pakistan's notorious -- and static -- two-party system.

Admittedly, not a lot politicians can challenge entrenched machines.

Many a candidate has tried to break America's two-party system. It hasn't worked. Examples abound in other democracies, too.

However, like Z.A. Bhutto before him (who broke the one-party system in Pak)...

IK achieved something historic in 2018: the culmination of a two decade-long campaign.

For years, Khan had struggled with political identity.

He couldn't be center-right: That was the PMLN.

He couldn't be center-left: That was the PPP.

So, he took his best shot, which was..

...At the center.

There was space in the center.

Not conservative, pro-mullah, pro-military, patronage-based right-wing nationalism.

Nor an out-of-touch and corrupt welfare-state model of champagne socialism dressed up as power-to-the-people liberalism.

Instead, Khan's real support was built on genuinely populist and demographic realities.

After he sat out the polls in 2008, his comeback plan for the '13 elections was a smart one.

He was to ride the wave of the middle class and the young voters who aspired to be like him...

Exactly like him: Pious and successful; bilingual and global.

On paper, it wasn't a bad plan at all, not with the static political machines of the PMLN & PPP unwilling or unable to win over his urban supporters.

But come 2013, Khan couldn't organize a win.

Not on his own.

In the '13 polls, he may have looked like a winner, but was far from it.

He lost. Big.

And so he pivoted: to the powers that be.

No, just to the Army, but also to other patrons.

Now, Khan isn't the first political leader & clearly not the last one, to solicit external help.

Given the entrenched nature of the opposition he faced, Khan had a tough choice: Keep struggling with his own ad-hocism and organizational shortcomings, or adapt to seek professional help.

So, he adapted.

He needed money, so he turned to shady tycoons like Jahangir Tareen.

He needed winners: so turncoats -- "electables"-- like SM Qureshi were picked.

Most importantly, in a new quasi-junta dynamic, where the establishment was bent to lead from behind, he needed license.

Enter, the Army.

Now -- and I say this with confidence, considering my years of covering the military's frontline operations as well as its backroom politicking -- the Army had more than a few reasons to trust Khan.

The primary among them was that, unlike their perception of PMLN/PPP leadership, Khan was "clean".

In a post-Panama Leaks world, where the military-state machinery had been fully deployed to try the PMLN leadership, and used to discredit PPP in the "war against corruption"...

Khan seemed like the best bet.

In a world of contract-based saint-and-patron politics of feudal lords and industrial magnates, he was going to clean thing things up.

But in this entire calculus, they all forgot: Khan didn't have organizational prowess.

He had never had it.

In 1997, he won zero seats.

In 2002, he won one seat.

In 2008, he sat out the election with a boycott.

In 2013, he won 31 seats (#3 overall).

So by the time they decided to back him up for 2018, sure, Khan's "good intentions" impressed the establishment...

But did they expect a man who'd never worked a day in his life to turn around one of the world's most complicated political economies?

To win the region's longest war?

To govern one of the planet's most inefficient & corrupt states?

If they did, they were kidding themselves.

If they didn't -- and it seemed like they didn't, for his ranks were soon filled by their finest: veterans of the Musharraf-era military regime -- they moved in for new a lead-from-behind model.

But everybody, even military transplants from another era, need leadership.

Initially, in the first few months after assuming office, Khan seemed inspired.

This was around the time when I was asked by one of his leading cabinet ministers to visit Islamabad and consider taking a top job at a key ministry.

I was flattered, but not surprised.

I represent a Pakistani demographic that has barely been represented in government. My credentials weren't bad, I figured. This was exactly what Naya Pakistan was supposed to be about.

So I decided to consider the option and flew up to Islamabad for an exploratory meeting.

I stayed on for a few days in the Cabinet Division, trying to get a feel for how government worked.

As a fly on the wall, I saw what Khan & Co were getting up to.

And frankly, I was appalled.

In parallel, by late 2018, Khan's policies had also begun to destroy Pak's media.

This was a sign.

My industry, which I'd helped build with channel & publication launches over almost two decades, was on its knees within months of his assuming power.

And within weeks of his taking office, the PM Secretariat & Cabinet Division, Pak's twin power centers...

...Felt like a cross between a frat house, a bachelor's club, a drawing room, and worse.

So, for me, it was over before it even started.

Before 2018 was a wrap, I had applied for graduate programs and decided to pivot back to school.

See, I was done.

Because Khan was done.

Driven by objectives, ambitions and goals, Khan was actually checked out.

In the assessment of friends & analysts, he wanted nothing else but to get here.

But now that he was here, there was nowhere else to go.

That's where the leadership crisis - one of confidence - emerged.

Today, on the second anniversary of his election, I'm sad to admit that I'm glad I left.

My life, my love, my industry - journalism - has suffered under the Khan regime.

So has almost every other sector that serves that country.

Still, the establishment got what it wanted...

Finally, they got a man they trusted to sit in the highest office of the land.

Good for them. And good for him.

But as the saying goes...

Be careful what you wish for: You just might get it.

Happy Anniversary, @ImranKhanPTI.

Hope you get your mojo back.

Cheers,

WSK

PS: Pakistan Zindabad