Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf
Roots
PTI was formed by former Pakistan cricket captain, Imran Khan, in
1996. The formation of the party was the political expression of the
spiritual transformation Khan had been going through ever since the
death of his mother (from cancer) and the Pakistan cricket team’s
victory in the 1992 Cricket World Cup (under his captaincy).
Throughout his cricketing career (1971-92), Khan had opted for a flamboyant and secular lifestyle and showed little interest in politics.
Imran Khan as cricket captain: The spiritual wilderness years.
Imran Khan with the World Cup, 1992
His religious transformation also coincided with him coming under the
wings of former ISI Chief and close ally of Ziaul Haq, General Hamid
Gul.
After Gul was eased out from the ISI by the first Benazir Bhutto government (1988-90), he had formed a party called Tehreek-e-Ittihad and was trying to rope in Khan to join the party(19).
However, not only did Khan moved to form his own party, he married Jamima Goldsmith, a British national. The marriage repulsed Gul’s advances to co-opt Khan into his party and Khan took his own party into the 1997 election to challenge the supremacy of the country’s two main parties, the PPP and PML-N.
The party faced a resounding defeat.
In 1999 when General Parvez Musrraf toppled the Nawaz Sharif government in a military coup, Khan hailed the decision.
PTI managed to win just one National Assembly seat in the 2002 election, but during this period Khan took back his support for Musharraf when the General decided to join the US ‘War on Terror.’
He also became close to the Jamat-i-Islami and echoed the Jamat’s anti-war mantra, emphasising that the conflict was not Pakistan’s responsibility.
But whereas his party remained to be nothing more than a one-man crusade, he did manage to organise an effective youth-wing of the party, the Insaf Students Federation (ISF).
PTI boycotted the 2008 election and was merely drifting as a ‘more good looking B Team of the Jamat-e-Islami,(20)’ when in late 2011, Khan surprised the media and other parties by managing to hold a massive rally in Lahore.
Khan’s constant presence on Urdu TV channels, the groundwork done by ISF, and the prominent role of PTI activists in the social media greatly helped PTI experience a sudden groundswell.
Supporters at a PTI rally in Lahore.
Khan has mixed leftist symbolism with right-wing rhetoric to attack
the PPP and PML-N and claims that his party is now in a position to
actually sweep the 2013 election.
____________________
Electoral History (National Assembly)
• 1997 Election
Seats won: None
• 2002 Election
Seats won: 1 (out of 271 NA seats)
• 2008 Election
Boycott
Areas of electoral influence (possible): Central and northern Punjab; KP.
_________________
Ideological evolution: Right-wing (1996-2002); Centre-Right (2002-2008); Centre-Right/Populist (2010 - ).
Views on Religion Moderate, even though PTI has come under constant criticism for playing the role of an ‘apologist’ for the Taliban. Nevertheless, PTI has been actively criticising Sunni sectarian organisations for attacks on the Shia community.
Khan continues to clarify that his party’s relationship with religion is like that of Jinnah’s and Iqbal’s.
He usually uses Islamic symbolism in his speeches. Most of his critics label PTI as a right-wing party whereas some have gone on to suggest that Khan is using religion like the ‘socialist’ Z A. Bhutto did in the 1970s.
Khan addresses an anti-drone rally near South Waziristan, 2012.
Khan with one of his favourite pet dogs in Islamabad.
Youth Wing: Insaf Students Federation (ISF)
Throughout his cricketing career (1971-92), Khan had opted for a flamboyant and secular lifestyle and showed little interest in politics.
After Gul was eased out from the ISI by the first Benazir Bhutto government (1988-90), he had formed a party called Tehreek-e-Ittihad and was trying to rope in Khan to join the party(19).
However, not only did Khan moved to form his own party, he married Jamima Goldsmith, a British national. The marriage repulsed Gul’s advances to co-opt Khan into his party and Khan took his own party into the 1997 election to challenge the supremacy of the country’s two main parties, the PPP and PML-N.
The party faced a resounding defeat.
In 1999 when General Parvez Musrraf toppled the Nawaz Sharif government in a military coup, Khan hailed the decision.
PTI managed to win just one National Assembly seat in the 2002 election, but during this period Khan took back his support for Musharraf when the General decided to join the US ‘War on Terror.’
He also became close to the Jamat-i-Islami and echoed the Jamat’s anti-war mantra, emphasising that the conflict was not Pakistan’s responsibility.
But whereas his party remained to be nothing more than a one-man crusade, he did manage to organise an effective youth-wing of the party, the Insaf Students Federation (ISF).
PTI boycotted the 2008 election and was merely drifting as a ‘more good looking B Team of the Jamat-e-Islami,(20)’ when in late 2011, Khan surprised the media and other parties by managing to hold a massive rally in Lahore.
Khan’s constant presence on Urdu TV channels, the groundwork done by ISF, and the prominent role of PTI activists in the social media greatly helped PTI experience a sudden groundswell.
____________________
Electoral History (National Assembly)
• 1997 Election
Seats won: None
• 2002 Election
Seats won: 1 (out of 271 NA seats)
• 2008 Election
Boycott
Areas of electoral influence (possible): Central and northern Punjab; KP.
_________________
Ideological evolution: Right-wing (1996-2002); Centre-Right (2002-2008); Centre-Right/Populist (2010 - ).
Views on Religion Moderate, even though PTI has come under constant criticism for playing the role of an ‘apologist’ for the Taliban. Nevertheless, PTI has been actively criticising Sunni sectarian organisations for attacks on the Shia community.
Khan continues to clarify that his party’s relationship with religion is like that of Jinnah’s and Iqbal’s.
He usually uses Islamic symbolism in his speeches. Most of his critics label PTI as a right-wing party whereas some have gone on to suggest that Khan is using religion like the ‘socialist’ Z A. Bhutto did in the 1970s.
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