Even for a politician, Imran Khan speaks far too much – and far too often. His words have lately been making less and less sense, but sadly the PTI chief appears to lack genuine friends who can prevent him from making a fool of himself. This of course is what he is doing right now, throwing reason aside as he spurts out, loudly and with sometimes terrifying venom, words that have either been fed to him or are the results of delusional thinking. In either case they are absurd. After initially lashing out at Geo TV and the Jang Group for ‘defaming’ an institution while reporting on the six bullets pumped into the body of Hamid Mir last month, Imran has now stridden out in another direction and accused the network of playing a part in rigging the 2013 general election. For someone who holds a degree from Oxford University Imran Khan has turned out to be surprisingly numerically illiterate. In weaving a grand conspiracy theory whereby Geo was part of a malign network of forces, the PTI chief has offered as proof the fact that the network called the results of seats before every vote was counted. Surely, Imran reasons, anyone who could guess the winner must have been involved in picking that winner in the first place.
What Imran does not understand – or more likely is pretending not to understand – is how statistics work. Geo, and every other news network in the country, was broadcasting vote totals as they were released and pointing out what percentage of polling stations had reported their results. In many cases, the vote patterns were strong enough to confidently state which candidate would win. But Imran does not want to hear about exotic concepts like representative sampling. He would much rather weave a grand conspiracy whereby Geo rigged the results in favour of Nawaz Sharif who then returned the favour by appointing Najam Sethi as PCB chairman who then gave the television rights for a cricket series to Geo. That one media group has the power to rig the elections and all it asks for in return is the right to air a few cricket matches is a theory so outlandish that it took Imran Khan nearly a full year to think it up. Khan’s charges essentially hover around the announcement of ‘partial’ results from polling stations and the broadcast of a speech by Nawaz Sharif some minutes after 11pm on May 11. It is difficult to even begin to understand how this could have affected the outcome of a poll in which votes had been cast hours ago. Imran’s fixation on rigging, his allegations that his candidate contesting NA-118 in Lahore had to pay millions of rupees to have thumb impressions verified and that there were problems with many votes cast may not be incorrect. But what could Geo have to do with this? Perhaps Imran has been reading too much fantasy; certainly in few places in the world have such wild accusations been made.
The rest of Imran’s diatribe makes even less sense. He has repeated allegations that were thrown out by the Supreme Court in August last year – that Geo accepted funding from foreign sources for some of its campaigns. At the time, Pemra was made to apologise for suggesting this. Everyone talks of ‘games’ being played by various entities but what Imran Khan has done cannot be written off merely as a political game. Surely he must know that levelling unfounded allegations of taking money and directions from foreign powers puts lives at threat. Just a couple of days ago a Geo reporter was beaten up in Bahawalpur and denounced as an Indian agent. This is the type of attitude that Imran will end up encouraging. He may see the TTP and its ilk as misunderstood nationalists but they have a track record of hunting down those they see as US collaborators. Should anything happen to an employee of the Jang Group because of irresponsible speculation of having divided loyalties, Imran will have to bear the burden of having incited such attacks. There have always been allegations and speculations about the interests behind the PTI’s emergence as a political force. These are now bound to resurface. The suddenness and venomous nature of Imran’s attack, combined with his upcoming protest rally, is already beginning to be being seen by many as a move to destabilise democracy and the free media. It is unclear quite why Imran Khan has decided to turn on Geo in this fashion. But it is clear that Imran, as some senior analysts have already pointed out, has completely lost the track he may have been walking on. This track was always a wobbly one. It now seems to have vanished into a jungle where nothing is clear and it is easy to get lost. The PTI chief is lost. He has thrown himself into a situation that casts doubts over both his integrity and rationality.
What Imran does not understand – or more likely is pretending not to understand – is how statistics work. Geo, and every other news network in the country, was broadcasting vote totals as they were released and pointing out what percentage of polling stations had reported their results. In many cases, the vote patterns were strong enough to confidently state which candidate would win. But Imran does not want to hear about exotic concepts like representative sampling. He would much rather weave a grand conspiracy whereby Geo rigged the results in favour of Nawaz Sharif who then returned the favour by appointing Najam Sethi as PCB chairman who then gave the television rights for a cricket series to Geo. That one media group has the power to rig the elections and all it asks for in return is the right to air a few cricket matches is a theory so outlandish that it took Imran Khan nearly a full year to think it up. Khan’s charges essentially hover around the announcement of ‘partial’ results from polling stations and the broadcast of a speech by Nawaz Sharif some minutes after 11pm on May 11. It is difficult to even begin to understand how this could have affected the outcome of a poll in which votes had been cast hours ago. Imran’s fixation on rigging, his allegations that his candidate contesting NA-118 in Lahore had to pay millions of rupees to have thumb impressions verified and that there were problems with many votes cast may not be incorrect. But what could Geo have to do with this? Perhaps Imran has been reading too much fantasy; certainly in few places in the world have such wild accusations been made.
The rest of Imran’s diatribe makes even less sense. He has repeated allegations that were thrown out by the Supreme Court in August last year – that Geo accepted funding from foreign sources for some of its campaigns. At the time, Pemra was made to apologise for suggesting this. Everyone talks of ‘games’ being played by various entities but what Imran Khan has done cannot be written off merely as a political game. Surely he must know that levelling unfounded allegations of taking money and directions from foreign powers puts lives at threat. Just a couple of days ago a Geo reporter was beaten up in Bahawalpur and denounced as an Indian agent. This is the type of attitude that Imran will end up encouraging. He may see the TTP and its ilk as misunderstood nationalists but they have a track record of hunting down those they see as US collaborators. Should anything happen to an employee of the Jang Group because of irresponsible speculation of having divided loyalties, Imran will have to bear the burden of having incited such attacks. There have always been allegations and speculations about the interests behind the PTI’s emergence as a political force. These are now bound to resurface. The suddenness and venomous nature of Imran’s attack, combined with his upcoming protest rally, is already beginning to be being seen by many as a move to destabilise democracy and the free media. It is unclear quite why Imran Khan has decided to turn on Geo in this fashion. But it is clear that Imran, as some senior analysts have already pointed out, has completely lost the track he may have been walking on. This track was always a wobbly one. It now seems to have vanished into a jungle where nothing is clear and it is easy to get lost. The PTI chief is lost. He has thrown himself into a situation that casts doubts over both his integrity and rationality.
No comments:
Post a Comment