ISLAMABAD: By Saturday evening, one group of protesters near Islamabad’s Red Zone had demanded the Sharif brothers’ resignation while the other threatened to storm the Red Zone.

“Inqilab” and “Azadi” (revolution and independence) appeared to be settling down in Islamabad, flexing their muscles in more ways than one.

Where street power and the numbers game was one way in which the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Pakistan Awami Tehreek showed their power, aggressive speeches their heads made was another.

In fact, the rhetoric of the two party heads suggested that neither of them would settle for any compromise or give and take, as expected by politicians, such as Jamaat chief Sirajul Haq and predicted by commentators.

After a quiet day, the two leaders arrived at their venues late in the afternoon (Tahirul Qadri turned up at 4pm while Imran Khan finally made an appearance at 7pm).

Although Tahirul Qadri spoke first and presented his four-point agenda which began with the demand for resignation of the Sharif brothers, Khan went a step further – he warned that his rally would sit quietly for one more day, after which the PTI workers would storm the Red Zone.

Imran Khan

“I am not here to sit for weeks. It’s better for you to listen to our demand and leave as soon as possible,” the PTI chief warned. “Don’t blame me if I can’t control these people who have gathered here for real democracy. I can control them until tomorrow night, but not beyond,” roared Khan, who was dressed in his trademark black shalwar kameez.

By 10 at night, he had upped the ante by adding that by the time he woke up on Sunday morning, the stage on which he was sitting should be pushed further up the Kashmir Highway. “We will then be closer to the Red Zone and the Constitution Avenue.”

According to analysts, the PTI chief was sending a clear message to the government and political parties who were keen to resolve the situation that overtures should be made to the PTI sooner rather than later.

When a PTI office-bearer was asked about Khan’s hard-hitting statement, he said the latter had realised that he had made a mistake by ‘announcing a break’ in the dharna (sit-in) on Saturday morning and now “he wants to charge the party workers up”.

In fact, Khan and his team tried hard to make up for their absence for most of the day (after making a speech at 5 in the morning he and the rest of his leadership went away to their homes) by making short speeches at frequent intervals. The speeches, high on emotion and theatrics, seemed to be an attempt to electrify the crowd after, what must have been for them, a languid and uneventful day.

Khan was in high spirits, asking for resignations, warning that his workers would not sit quietly for more than a day, predicting that he would be the next prime minister, and calling upon Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to see the writing on the wall and switch sides. “Chaudhry Nisar, Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak and I were class fellows in Aitcheson college; we are waiting for you here.”

His words did more than rev up the crowds.

Tahirul Qadri

And undoubtedly, Khan did a good job of charging up the crowds. Till the filing of this report, the dharna had turned into a signature PTI rally, with music, an upbeat crowd that danced to songs and cheered on as the party leaders spoke.

THE OTHER SHOW: Before Khan had turned up, Tahirul Qadri had set the mood for the day with his speech to a more organised and, according to most accounts, bigger audience.

He began by asking for resignations as well as dissolution of the National and provincial assemblies and the formation of a national government.

Shortly after Saturday midnight, Tahirul Qadri issued an ultimatum to the government, asking it to accept the marchers’ demands within 48 hours.

Qadri called on the FIA chief to put the names of the Sharif brothers and members of the federal and provincial cabinets on the ECL to prevent their escape from the country.

Like Imran Khan, Qadri also called on people sitting at home to come out in support of the demands, but urged them to remain peaceful.

The Sharifs were not the only target of the PAT chief.

He also made a veiled criticism of Imran Khan’s stance, saying that “we want a national government, and not any interim government, because the latter cannot carry out reforms”.

“We will not accept mid-term elections because the same faces will come back into assemblies,” he added.

He was dismissive of a PTI demand for recount in 10 to 20 constituencies. “It will not make any difference.”

The cleric then put forward a number of demands – short and long term – that ranged from putting the names of the Sharif brothers on exit control list to “ruthless accountability of corrupt officials” to local government elections to the protection of the rights of minorities “We will cut the hands of those who harm minorities, their places of worship and culture.”

Switching over to English, he assured those listening (and not familiar with Urdu) that he and his followers were democratic people who did not believe in violence.

All along he made it clear that he was no longer in favour of joining hands with PTI by criticising Imran Khan.

For instance, when he appeared among his workers at 2 in the afternoon, he belittled the PTI chairman for leaving his supporters in the rain and going home to rest. “I will not leave you alone and will remain with you till my last breath or the commencement of Inqilab (revolution),” he said.

There was no dearth of drama at the PAT rally either. At one stage, workers ‘discovered’ a man who was in possession of a gun. This provided Qadri the chance to show his ‘benevolence’ by stopping his workers from roughing the man up, calling the man up on the stage and hugging him.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2014