Why does PTI keep repeating the same mistakes?

3rd May 2021: Representatives of the current government of PTI are more often than not the hot topics of discussion not only in national news but daily drawing-room politics as well.

The most recent fiasco has been of Ms. Firdous Ashiq Awan inviting critique upon herself as she visits a fruit market where she can be seen imprudently confronting a government officer over the price of fruits.

This is not an isolated incident and Ms. Firdous isn’t the only culprit contributing to the derogation of PTI over time, in fact, it is a collective effort by the Party’s “intellectuals”.

To attribute such an effort to evil intentions would merely be a dubious assumption on my part and also one which gives them more credit than they deserve as in order to organize such a coordinated and effective butchering of their national image would require critical thinking and execution on a scale where PTI has often proven its incapability.

Then what became their reason for declining public support?

I do not possess the qualifications or the capacity to comment on how effective their governance has been but with my limited education I have come up with a theory as to why PTI which was once the knight in shining armor for the Pakistani media and the public alike has been brought down to the joke of the decade.

“The Hero complex”, sometimes called the Hero Syndrome or Savior Complex, is when someone strives to be the hero of the situation. No matter the situation or the odds, they want to be the ones that save the day.

In some definitions, a person with a hero complex will even create situations that inconvenience or harm others, just so they can take credit for fixing it later.

The entire PTI seems to be at the mercy of this complex. The roots of which can be traced back to their election campaign, the entirety of which has been built upon the hatred of other political parties.

I find myself guilty of being in awe of the wave, which was PTI and the music, which was Imran Khan’s words.

With the adrenaline that flowed throughout my body as merely an attendee of the dharna, I can only imagine the feelings of power and greatness a human being feels when hundreds of thousands of people are chanting your name after you just cashed the hatred against the previous governments.

Like a dangerous drug addiction, the severe hero complex seems to have followed PTI to the government. While no doubt an effective approach for gaining votes and popularity, it simply does not seem suitable for the government.

When a representative of the government takes it upon themselves to save the day and be the hero, in doing so they open the unforgiving doors of public criticism upon themselves.

Taking the recent incident as an example, now Ms. Firdous “will have” to answer; whether as SAPM she possesses the executive powers to conduct such regulation in fruit markets?

Whether her qualifications even match up to those of the government officer? Whether the market was the best forum for confrontation? Whether she has no regard for Covid Sops? Whether her public office grants her the right to address another human being in such an imprudent manner.

I would not have used mandatory wording such as “will have” for any other government’s representatives however, I am confident in my theory.

Like a bad drug habit, it has become a compulsion for them, Twitter trends and Facebook comments matter more than European sanctions and as the trend suggests a substantial amount of time will be taken up in firefighting on the media and social media rather than running the country.

I would not consider this article as one which adequately critiques PTI but rather one which invites sympathy for the poor, helpless representatives of PTI who are merely subject to a psychological condition and just can’t help it.

This is an opinion article written by Mustafa Lucman who is currently studying Law.

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