MUCH has been predicted on TV this past week about the dark fate awaiting the PTI. There was a lot of finger-wagging as those in the know made dire predictions about Imran Khan not being acceptable (been there); the party not being given its reserved seats (done that) and also being banned (here we go again).

This may make for repetitive television, but the party’s real challenge is different; in order to understand it, one should pay attention to KP. Here the party enjoys unprecedented popularity. But it now faces growing pressure of the workers, who are said to be getting impatient. After all, the party’s support base withstood months of suppression to stand victorious in an election.

But it has little to show for this victory. For months now, there have been whispers that the party’s rank and file is getting worked up — over kidnappings and disappearances still taking place in Punjab, with at least one reported case in KP; over Imran Khan’s incarceration; and over the KP government’s inability to hold accountable officials who had spent months and weeks before the elections hounding the PTI. (The incident in which party workers nearly attacked Omar Ayub the day the iddat case verdict was announced, and Khan and his wife were not released is a case in point.)

Such is the pressure that it is repeatedly mentioned that Khan is not happy with his chief minister because he has been unable to institute a commission to look into May 9. More serious still, rumours have begun........

© Dawn