Imran Khan: The digital age populist

Since 1974, the Pakistani constitution had been explicitly rag-dolled by two dictators, Ziaul Haq, and Pervez Musharraf. With the Article 5 manoeuvre he orchestrated at parliament on April 3, Imran Khan can now stand shoulder to shoulder with those men in our Constitutional Hall of Shame. He is not a dictator in name, nor will he ever command Pakistan’s armed forces – but he has exposed his credentials to be those of a standard-issue digital age populist.

This is ironic because Pakistani commentators partial to the Sharif and Bhutto-Zardari version of democracy have claimed, really since around the Dawn Leaks fiasco, that if there is a dictator in Pakistan, it was the man leading the same organisation that was once led by General Zia and General Musharraf. But the end of the ‘one-page’ equation in Islamabad and Rawalpindi also meant that democrats could now begin to cheer for the same team they always cheer for the elected civilian leader. Or did it?

As the differences from Notification Gate consumed the civil-military equilibrium, surely Pakistan democrats would mobilise in favour of Imran Khan? 

Traditionally, pro-democracy voices align with whoever gets the short end of the stick when one page is torn apart. And this is always the elected civilian leader. The military does, after all, continue to be the single most powerful organisation in the country, and the institutional centre of gravity of the country (maybe even the region). But this pro-democracy consolidation did not happen. 

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On one side was everyone, including it seemed, the military. On the other was Imran Khan and those that pledge their allegiance to him. The operative element of this allegiance is to who it is pledged. It is not to the country, not to party, not to corps, and clearly, after the trampling of due process at parliament on April 3, not even to the constitution. It is to the one seemingly sacred thing left in Pakistani governance: Imran Khan. Standard-issue digital age populist.

The kind of agency Khan has in this saga should prompt more serious thinking. Sadly, even as the country’s institutional stability hangs in the balance, it remains difficult to think seriously and openly judge the individuals and organisations that have curated and created the current crisis. 

This may suit Imran Khan but has been a curse visited on Pakistan by the clumsy and heavy-handed approach to the public discourse adopted by the security establishment — informed principally by an overblown fear of the conduct of fifth-generation warfare in Pakistani hearts and minds by enemy entities. The cost we now pay is a sense of paralysis in trying to understand how the events that have transpired have taken place, and what this all will mean for the country.

What Imran Khan is doing is standard issue majoritarian populist politics. This politics is anchored in the same formula. The formula has three parts to it.

Part One is ‘The Big Lie’. Say whatever needs to be said in a way that will consolidate your base. Thanks to social media, the cost of framing messages and deploying narratives has dramatically fallen. 

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What used to take the Hillary Clintons of the world a busload of PhDs and millions of dollars, Donald Trump did in television appearances lasting less than half an hour. Once his Twitter account really took off, it took less than 220 characters.

Ideally, in Part One, the thing you say should be about: ‘corruption’ or ‘patriotism’ or our ‘culture’. Part One is great because it is not only low cost, but also low risk. There is no cost to be incurred for making factual errors or telling lies. Mostly there is a reward. 

The bigger the lie, the more scandalously it lands on eyes and ears, and the more viral it is. If you tell The Big Lie often enough, those that oppose you will stay busy fighting your lies. By the time you are already on the next lie, the opposition will still be sorting through the first one, admiring its integrity and its fidelity to the truth whilst doing so. Your audience? Your audience will be lapping up the lie you’re on, and eagerly, achingly anticipating the next.

Part Two is ‘Blame Everyone Else’. No matter what happens, blame someone else for it. This is an essential and underrated part of the majoritarian populist formula. 

Actual reform or policy innovation is why many of these kinds of leaders are beloved by their supporters, but few, if any, actually know how to enact reform, or how policy works. So, the ability to claim major reform intent is really what matters. 

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Not the results. And if and when there is failure — also a pre-determined and guaranteed part of the populists’ work, so there always is failure —then it must be externalised. 

It is always either the other (the foreigner, the minority, the competitor) or it is the opponent — ideally, a combination of both. Because anything and everything can be blamed on the other or on the opponent, the standard-issue majoritarian populist has very little incentive to actually be prepared for the governor to invest incompetence. This perpetuates the cycle of governing failure.

Part Three is ‘The Loyal Supporter’. This is the pièce de resistance of the formula. Nurturing, cultivating, mining, gaslighting and harvesting the loyal supporter is essential to the sustenance of the standard-issue populist leader. 

He just needs to keep the core supporters angry and hopeful, in varying measures, almost perpetually. The supporter is the engine of 24/7 outrage as a perpetual motion machine. The leader needs to be in the heads of both his supporters and his opponents — and he does this by tickling the fancy of supporters enough to keep them hopeful, but constantly fuel their sense of being wronged (with him out there trying to defend them).

Keeping people angry and excited is how loyal supporters stay blind to the catastrophic damage that many standard-issue majoritarian populists do. 

Because these leaders don’t have the same temporal metrics as what we read in history books, their sense of history is amorphous, often based on the accounts of hacks and quacks. But it doesn’t matter. 

What they need from the supporter, they know how to harvest. They just need to keep their supporters invested in the idea that the reform and change they promised are not that far away. Between that promised land and them, stands the other and the opponent. The only reason they stand in the way is that they are corrupt, treasonous and against our values and culture.

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What can stop a populist from continuing to rampage through the china shop of governance? Really only one thing. The establishment of a large enough coalition that can aggressively mobilise resistance to the populist. To do this requires stepping out of traditional elite comfort zones — and engaging and levelling with the on-the-fence quasi supporters of the standard-issue majoritarian populist.

Most traditional elites, including in the Philippines, Hungary, the UK, Brazil, India, and even the US have failed. The opposition’s sense of shock at the Article 5 manoeuvre yesterday indicates it is primed to fail too. No matter what the Supreme Court says, watch Imran Khan keep telling big lies, keep blaming everyone else, and keep harvesting his loyal supporters as he further consolidates his power. 

His bet? Enough loyal supporters are serving and retired military. Enough sound and fury can be generated to make their feelings count. Enough electables are easy-load and completely lacking in scruples. Put it all together, and he is primed to give the entire spectrum of ‘Not Imran Khan’ a real run for their money. Are ‘Not Imran Khan’ ready?

The writer is an analyst and commentator.

Originally published in The News