The success of the mega rich lies is ensuring that they keep making money off the while ensuring the poor remain fiercely loyal to them. Regardless of colour creed or ethnicity, the pattern of mega rich being defended by the poor and disillusioned middle classes gets played out around the world. Be it the US, where the Tea Party, an ultra conservative off shoot of the Republican party is dedicated to cutting down taxes and challenging big government while running on financial donations from some of the richest people within the US such as the Koch Brothers or our very own version of that, the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf that harbors similar sentiments and is backed by big money from the likes of Abdul Aleem Khan, Jehangir Tareen and Co.
In both instances the core issue is the same; there prevails a culture of privilege and hypocrisy that is covered by layers of upon layers of fanatics who are taught never to question and only to follow. It is these layers of naïve fanatics that provide the legitemacy required by the mega rich to push forward their agendas. In the US, the Koch Brothers along with their friends like Casino Magnate Sheldon Adelson, dumped millions in political campaigns and practically created the Tea Party using funds from Super PACs. In case of Pakistan, the Mega Rich found a vehicle for their agendas in the form of Imran Khans PTI which for the longest time was trying to be the third force. But while the PTI much like the Tea Party in the US, talks about making things better for the poor through social justice and a less intrusive Federal Government, both tend to turn a blind eye to facts about their own financiers.
In the last 30 days alone, Imran Khans party has been caught off guard twice. First it was the revelation by none other than the Federal Board of Revenue that the President of the PTIs Youth Wing, popular young singer Abrar Ul Haq, has no concept of Income Tax and has not paid a single rupee in that regard within the last 3 to 4 years. One would assume that a party that has trained its supporters to throw mud at others and bash everyone else for not paying taxes would have at least checked their upper leadership to see if all of them are taxpaying citizens of Pakistan. I mean, this is basic due diligence. But apparently due diligence is something alien to a party that wishes to fix corruption in 90 days.
Instead of accepting the fact that they have been duped by their own Youth Wing President, the PTIs support base did what it does best, denied it flat out and blamed the PML-N. More recently it was reported that the PTIs key financier, Jehnagir Tareen has been rewriting the rule book on corporate governance whereby his household staff are on the Board of Directors of his companies for tax and control purposes. Again the exact same thing happened, the PTIs naïve fanatic fan base flatly refused to believe something that had been investigated by a respectable publication and found to be true. To top it off, the best part was Jehangir Tareen did not even bother denying it to be untrue. Instead, what he did was simply repeat what their partys stance on everything is
Blame PML-N!
This is a pattern that keeps repeating itself with regards to the PTI. The underlying problem is simple; the party is run in a dictatorial style of management coupled with an elitist mind set. At every level of the party this mindset of elitism and entitlement is evident be it their field operations and online operations. Fact is, in the last 3 to 4 months multiple cases of discrepancies have come to light with regards to PTI. In each instance all these cases have been hushed up or simply buried by the PTI. PTIs actions are in complete contradiction to what their narrative and massage is. Even if the world was to ignore the sort of financial discrepancies and governance models that are coming up as scandals, the fact remains that this is a party that has gone back on its words so many times that people now use Going PTI as a term when referring to someone who backs out of everything.