Imran's politics of resistance & challenges faced by him.

Byline: Akbar Jan Marwat

I recently read a book 'The age of the Strongman, how the Cult of the leader threatens democracy around the world.

' Written by scholar and journalist Gidion Rachman. In this book, Rachman writes about a new breed of Political leaders, who can be called Populist Strongman.

These leaders are essentially charismatic but authoritarian and use democracy only as a vehicle to get from one place to the other.

These leaders claim to back the ordinary person against the elite; and feel in their self-righteousness, that they should not be restrained by ordinary law of the land.

Although Imran Khan has not been named in this book as such a leader, I have a strong feeling that he (Imran) has many similarities with such populist strongman leaders.

Ever since a vote of no confidence was passed against the PTI-led government, the country has been plunged into an unprecedented political crisis by Imran Khan and his party.

Firstly, the Imran government was not willing to accept a genuine political move by the opposition parties, and had the' No-confidence motion' dismissed through their Deputy Speaker.

This was a blatantly unconstitutional ruling, as was declared by the courts later.The motion was again moved and passed under the orders of the Supreme Court.

PTI as a protest resigned from the National Assembly. Soon after resigning from the National Assembly Imran Khan drummed up an unprecedented level of public protest against the new government.

The crowds in the rallies, resonated to Imran Khan's false narrative of America being involved in passing the no confidence motion against his government.

Imran also regularly blamed the army for being neutral, essentially a constitutional position.

Imran, believing in his moral superiority, was asking the army, not to follow the constitution but to help him and his party against an allegedly corrupt opposition.

Imran's aggressive campaign against the government and the establishment, touched a common nerve with the people.

PTI's popularity had tanked while in office, sky rocketed not only because of Imran's campaign, but also due to inflation and high prices, the blame for which the PTI conveniently put at the door of the new government.

In such a situation, the PTI won an overwhelming victory on the 20 seats of the Punjab Assembly, which were vacated due to the disqualification of PTI members for floor crossing.

PTI today is no doubt riding on a high wave of popularity, and would most...