Imagine that your mother has taken an infection and she requires surgery as part of the cure. You want maximum quality medical care for your mother, so you decide before the surgery, you will interview the doctors and select the best to save her life.
The first doctor has been practicing medicine since 20 years. He has saved many lives, but some he has lost also. He started his career as a resident, working under senior physicians and learning from their experiences. During his 20 years experience, he has made some mistakes, but he has also made some courageous recoveries. He has a record of 80 per cent success.
The second doctor has been practicing medicine since 25 years. He, too, has saved many lives but has lost some also. Like the first doctor, he started his career as a resident, working under senior physicians and learning from their experiences. During his 20 years experience, he has made some mistakes, but he has also made some courageous recoveries. He has a record of 85 per cent success.
The third doctor has been practicing medicine since 5 years. He has never performed a surgery, and has never been in residency. He was a very famous actor in romantic films, and is very tall and handsome. Compared to the other doctors, he looks much better in his uniform. He has never lost any patients, but he has never saved any either because actually he has never even had any patients.
Which doctor will you trust with the life of your mother? Will you choose the doctor with the 80 per cent success rate? Will you choose the doctor with the 85 per cent success rate? Each of these has done some good, but also they have made mistakes and lost patients. Will you, then, choose the ‘untested’ doctor who has never performed a surgery in his life? Would you entrust your mother to an untested doctor?
This is the argument I continue to hear from those who suggest that the fate of our motherland should be given to ‘the untested’, Imran Khan. To them, Imran Khan’s complete lack of experience is seen as a positive. But what happens if he is a complete blunder? Then what?
This gets to my real question. Why does Imran Khan have to be PM or President? Why can’t he be MNA and gain some experience with what is required to actually govern. So far Imran Khan has given emotional speeches and held dharnas, but he has never actually created any solutions to any problems. Maybe he should learn to crawl before he tries running a marathon?
Another question – if we are to believe Dr Alvi and the other PTI walas in the media, PTI is going to dominate the 2013 elections. In order for this to happen, though, there has to be enough candidates to win majority of seats in parliament. In 2002 general elections, PTI had 95 candidates. In 2008, they had zero. Who are these mystery people that we are asked to vote for in 2013? They are not only ‘untested’, they are completely unknown!
General Secretary PTI is Dr Arif Alvi, a Karachi dentist. Would Dr Alvi entrust his own mother to a man who had never passed a single dental exam and had never practised dentistry? Why is he asking us to entrust our motherland to a man who has never governed even a single district? Governance is not an experiment that we can afford to let fail. You do not put a hospital under the charge of a man who has never passed one medical exam. And you don’t put an entire nation under the charge of a man who has never passed one single political test.
