ISAS Briefs

The marchers under the banners of two parties'the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the Pakistani Awami Tehrik (PAT)'didn't get very far from Lahore as the sun set on 14 August 2014, the country's Independence Day anniversary. As with so many other targets the two political groups had set for themselves, this too didn't yield the expected results. The two parties came up with the idea of a "million-man march" to focus on their very different and seemingly irreconcilable goals. Imran Khan, chairman of PTI, wanted to topple the government headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and have a mid-term election held which he hoped to win. Tahir ul Qadri, the Sufi from Canada and the head of PAT, on the other hand, wanted to topple the system, not just the man who was heading it. Both wanted change to serve their different purposes; and in the process they brought the country to the edge of yet another political abyss.