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Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Khan’s murky political future in Pakistan
Pakistan’s dysfunctional politics took another turn on Tuesday when an appeals court suspended former PM Imran Khan’s sentence and three-year jail term for allegedly selling state gifts during his tenure. However, that same court has not overturned that conviction and will decide on whether to set it aside at a later, unspecified date.
Quick background. Khan, the former cricket sensation turned populist politician, was imprisoned earlier this month on graft charges that he says are politically motivated. He was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022, which set the streets on fire. Indeed, polls show that he remains the most popular leader in the country.
The former PM says that the all-powerful military – backed by the US – is behind efforts to block him from power.
Still, Khan, who faces a host of other charges that he denies, has not been released because he faces another hearing on Wednesday related to charges that he revealed state secrets when he waved a government document in the air at a political rally.
So what happens now? Under state law, Khan, who has been banned from running for public office for five years, can only run in Pakistan’s election, set for November, if his criminal convictions are overturned. But this latest decision, which likely allows him to get out of jail while his appeal makes its way through the courts, gives little indication that things are heading that way.Supporters of Pakistan's ousted former PM Imran Khan listen to his Long March speech in Lahore.
On the road to confrontation: Imran Khan’s power trip
On Friday, Pakistan's former PM Imran Khan finally kicked off the "Long March" he’s been threatening for months. Khan’s move is a familiar one in this part of the world, which has a rich history of mobilizing to achieve political goals.
Indeed, less than a century ago, Mohandas K. Gandhi, the father of modern India and progenitor of civil disobedience, kicked out the Brits through non-violence — and his footsteps. In 1930, Gandhi started his famous Salt March, walking 239 miles across his home state of Gujarat to defy colonial rule. His initial few dozen followers eventually turned into thousands, ushering in the beginning of the end for the mighty British Raj.
With that march, Gandhi birthed a long tradition of political protest on the subcontinent: If you want change, walk.
That’s why Rahul Gandhi, no relation to Mohandas but the leader of the same Indian National Congress, has been walking across the world’s largest democracy for over a month in a “Unite India '' march — his attempt to counter ascendant rival, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Across the border, Khan’s march is well underway in a country that has had a very different experience with democracy. The launchpad is Lahore, Khan’s hometown and Pakistan’s cultural capital; the destination is Islamabad, the federal capital and Khan’s last residence, from where he was removed from power in April. The goal is to trigger snap elections, a prize the political establishment is denying him.
Although general elections are due in October 2023, Khan wants them now, and with reason: The 70-year-old has never been more popular. He accuses Washington of orchestrating regime change against his “independent” foreign policy. However light on evidence, the rhetoric resonates as Khan’s transformation from cricket champion to Islamist savior continues to impress voters. Despite the economic chaos his government left in its wake, he’s been sweeping by-elections, holding mass rallies, and doing what no other Pakistani politician has dared to do without being incarcerated, or worse: taking on the all-powerful military.
The distance Khan is traveling is close to what Gandhi traversed 92 years ago — about 234 miles, which can be covered in about four hours of driving — and the tactics are similar. He is pacing his march over the week, aiming to arrive by Friday. The goal of staggering the journey is to gather a mass following and political momentum.
As he left Lahore on Friday with a crowd of about 10,000 to the tune of nationalist pop music and Islamist anthems, Khan announced that he expects more than a million people to join him on the historic Grand Trunk Road, the country’s political heartland and the path of many movements that preceded his.
But in Pakistan’s violence-ridden history, most of those campaigns have not ended well. In 2007, I followed former PM Benazir Bhutto, whose own march was attacked by a suicide bomber in Karachi hours after she launched it upon her return from self-exile (days later, Bhutto was assassinated on the campaign trail).
In 2016 and 2017, as waves of Islamist protesters marched in support of Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy laws, the violence not only injured many colleagues but also paralyzed the capital, including the forced closing of my daughter’s school for weeks.
And in 2014, as Khan laid siege to Islamabad for over six months, ending the normalcy of daily life for hundreds of thousands of residents and officials, I covered his first Long March, a failed attempt to overthrow the government of then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (he only ended the protest after a deadly terror attack killed 150, including 134 children, shocking the country).
Clearly, Khan thrives in such chaos. But this time, Shehbaz Sharif, Nawaz’s younger brother, is the prime minister, and the government has warned Khan about breaking the law. Crucially, Sharif has the support of the military, which Khan has fallen out with.
Yet since his removal, Sharif’s administration and its military backers have failed spectacularly in their attempts to stop the Khan juggernaut. Every tactic has backfired: from framing flimsy terrorism charges against Khan, to conditionally disqualifying him from running for office, to arresting and torturing his deputies, to cracking down on coverage of his rallies (including live reporting of the Long March itself). The establishment has been forced on its back foot in such an unprecedented way that the shadowy spy chief had to hold an emergency press conference to explain the military’s precarious positioning.
But as the generals call out his “illegal and unconstitutional” maneuvering, Khan marches on.
Will the pedestrian brinkmanship propel him back to power? “There’s no recent precedent of a Long March peacefully forcing a change of government or policy,” says Mosharraf Zaidi, founder of the Islamabad-based think tank, Tabadlab. “But two factors can change things: violence, or a long, enduring political paralysis that forces powerful players to blink first.”
Zaidi assesses that Khan has neither the stomach for the first nor the capability — sans military support — for the second.
But Khan might disagree. As his followers swelled into the thousands on the trek toward Islamabad over the weekend, Khan urged them to obey the law, even as intelligence officials warned about terror attacks. A stark warning of the dangers involved came Sunday with news of a female journalist being crushed to death. Sadaf Naeem, 36, died after falling from one of the Long March vehicles, prompting Khan to express his condolences and halt the march for the day.
Earlier, as the carnival atmosphere was sustained by lively music and speeches, the playback of one classic song, dating back to the 1965 war with India and with lyrics pushing to “destroy all that comes in the way and fill the battlefield with bodies,” prompted Hamid Mir, one of Pakistan’s most respected journalists, to advise caution and let politics be politics.
But as Pakistan’s failing security state — infected by decades of self-destructive jingoism, jihadism, and interventionism — finds itself increasingly polarized, confrontation is seen by some as a solution, not a problem.
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Supporters of former Pakistani PM Imran Khan's block a Peshawar motorway toll plaza after he was disqualified from holding public office.
Crisistan: Pakistan’s three-way political poker game
Always on the brink, Pakistan is in crisis mode. Former PM Imran Khan, the cricket hero-turned-born again Muslim populist firebrand, was disqualified Friday from holding public office. Meanwhile, his deputies are being arrested, recorded conversations are being leaked to damage his credibility, and his supporters are being threatened with legal action.
But nothing’s working to stop the Khan juggernaut. And the country, strapped for cash and still reeling from catastrophic flooding, is headed toward further political turmoil.
As protests spring up in his support, the “Kaptaan” — Captain, as Khan is known for his athletic accolades and lead-from-the-front style of politicking — is threatening to launch a movement of civil disobedience by marching toward the capital of the world’s fifth-most populous nation and only nuclear-armed Islamic republic.
Yes he Khan. The 70-year-old has created a stir since April, when he was ousted from the premiership after falling out with the military, Pakistan’s ultimate arbiter of power. Since his removal through a vote of no-confidence that brought in a military-backed parliamentary coalition made of older, family-run parties with Shehbaz Sharif as PM, Khan’s popularity has been surging.
Alleging without much evidence that he’s the victim of US-backed conspiracy, the ousted former PM has been holding massive rallies, leading his party to sweep by-elections triggered by parliamentary reshuffling, and is pushing back against Pakistan’s traditional power structures — even those controlled by the all-powerful military.
Now, as the economy continues to spiral due to rising inflation, a weakening rupee, a balance of payments crisis and over $30 billion of losses from flooding, Khan’s rising popularity is being challenged through the Election Commission, which has accused him of corruption for not declaring about $100,000 worth of watches, cufflinks, and a ring he received from foreign dignitaries as PM and for selling them for twice as much. While the charges are flimsy, they may stick longer than the terrorism accusations made against him earlier this year.
“The disqualification seems to fit into a pattern of legal harassment by the Sharif government, with the support of the military,” says Eurasia Group analyst Pramit Chaudhury.
To challenge the verdict, Khan’s party wants a petition to be heard on Monday at the Islamabad High Court.
The disqualification verdict, held under wraps for more than a month, was not duly processed and is “suspicious as well as patently illegal," says Khan’s lawyer, Chaudhry Faisal Hussain. What’s more, as far as the merit of the case is concerned, “it’s the unanimous opinion of the legal fraternity across Pakistan that it is naive and weak to the extent of absurdity — there is no legal substance that can help this verdict stand in any court of law.”
Hussain is confident that Khan’s disqualification will be overturned. But in Pakistani politics, the military eats the courts for breakfast.
Will the real leader please stand up. All this unrest might just be theatrics to leverage the backroom politicking underway for the real prize: the appointment of the country’s next army chief —ostensibly the most powerful office in the land — by the end of November.
Here’s how it works in Pakistan's complicated system of a hybrid democracy: While an elected prime minister heads the government, he/she must reckon with the 600,000-strong military and share power with the army chief, who is selected personally by the PM. Given Pakistan’s civil-military imbalance, this arrangement has never gone well — akin to the hen choosing the fox to guard the hen house.
Consequently, army chiefs have usually outlasted and mostly outmaneuvered PMs. In 75 years, Pakistan has had 26 premierships, but only 16 army commanders — even though the latter are supposed to serve for three years, while the former are elected for five.
Fun fact: no Pakistani PM has ever finished a term in office. Every single premier has either been assassinated, executed, ousted, forced to resign or go into exile. Meanwhile, four army chiefs have served as presidents after conducting coups or declaring emergencies, and three of the last four have been granted or given themselves extended tenures.
Political poker. In the three-way struggle between Khan, Sharif, and the military to retain power, everybody has cards to play.
Khan’s ploy is to kick and scream against his disqualification to force an election and/or threaten a “long march” that will undoubtedly paralyze the country, perhaps even trigger violence. He’s actually quite effective at activism and protesting: Back in 2014, as opposition leader he laid the capital under siege for almost six months in his “Azaadi” [Independence] march, similar to the one he’s threatening now. Khan is not only savvy with the politics of unrest — in fact he thrives on it. So, will he be able to muster similar momentum to stage a popular comeback?
“A key test will be the response he gets to his call for mass protests,” says Chaudhury. “While Khan’s ability to hold million-men rallies and tap popular discontent over Pakistan’s present economic malaise is impressive, it is hard to see Sharif conceding his demand for early elections.”
Meanwhile, the incumbent PM is sitting on an even thornier decision: who will be the next army chief. To make the right choice, he must ensure that the military is satisfied and that his own political future is secure.
“Choosing the right candidate,” Chaudhury explains, “will be crucial for Sharif’s political future and potentially for Khan’s as well — if a general who doesn’t like the opposition leader takes the helm.”
But perhaps the most powerful card of all is being held by the current army chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, expected to retire in a month. The 62-year old has been here before: early in his tenure in 2017, former PM Nawaz Sharif — the elder brother of Shehbaz and Khan’s nemesis — was also disqualified from office on similarly dubious charges.
The political instability and polarization borne from that tussle helped Bajwa secure what he wanted: an even bigger seat for the army at the table, and then an extension of service for himself.
On Friday, just as protests were swirling in Khan’s support across the country, the general reiterated that he’s going to retire on time. Will this round of civilian political infighting favor the military even more?This article comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Sign up today.
Imran Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in Islamabad.
Palace intrigue plagues Pakistan
Pakistan’s PM Imran Khan is no stranger to controversy.
He has called Osama bin Laden a martyr of Islam. He’s praised the Taliban for breaking the shackles of slavery. Khan hasn’t defended rape, but he has lectured women on how to dress modestly to avoid it – something detractors call a tad rich, considering his past as a West End playboy.
Yet, Khan, now a self-declared, born-again Muslim, has been brazen and unapologetic about his brand of politicized Islam. In office, he’s been decidedly anti-West and pro-China. And in a new foreign policy pivot, Khan stood by Vladimir Putin’s side on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, defending his trip to Moscow by saying it was “an exciting time” to be at the Kremlin.
But the 68-year-old Kaptaan — Captain, as he’s known for his cricketing accolades and carefully cultivated against-all-odds brand of leadership — is officially in trouble. Later this week, he’ll face a vote of no-confidence in Pakistan’s notoriously corrupt and raucous parliament.
Statistically, this was expected. The premiership is a poisoned chalice in Pakistan, where no prime minister has ever managed to complete a full term. Assassinations, coups, and everything in between have seen to that. With just over a year left in his five-year term, it seems that Khan too is headed in that direction.
To oust Khan, the country’s usually divided opposition groups — which are constituted on Pakistan’s various ethnic and nationalist faultlines in a multi-party system — have rallied under the united banner of the Pakistan Democratic Movement.
They say Khan has failed to curb inflation, manage the economy, and implement a respectable foreign policy. They also claim to have the numbers to remove him from power in parliament. In response, Khan has doubled down, bestowing profanities and threats, and fired up his Islamist base. Human Rights Watch has warned about expected violence.
But the biggest arbiter of Pakistani politics is the 650,000-strong military, which has called the shots for decades and carried out several successful coups. Indeed, in cricket-crazy Pakistan, the military is popularly known as the “third umpire” — the official who runs the game invisibly, not from the field of play, but from behind locked doors, deciding the match from afar.
Thus, by default if not by design, the country’s most powerful man is not the PM but rather army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa.
Although Bajwa was picked by Khan’s predecessor and was supposed to retire three years ago, he stayed on after being awarded an extension by Khan. Now, according to Islamabad watchers, he still doesn’t want to hang up his guns.
But Khan has other plans: he wants to appoint an officer closer to him for the top job. This is Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, a former intelligence chief now in charge of counter-terror operations in the country’s volatile western theater bordering Afghanistan. Hameed was pivotal in stabilizing Kabul after the return of the Taliban last summer and also helped Khan ascend to office through political maneuvering. Bajwa wants none of this and – even though the military officially says it's neutral – seems to have pulled the plug that was powering Khan’s regime.
It’s NOT the economy, stupid. There’s no real economic justification for ousting Khan.
“[His] economic performance has been a mixed bag if it’s graded on a curve and with the caveat that his government not only inherited an economic crisis but had to navigate a global pandemic,” says Uzair Younis, director of the Pakistan Initiative at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC. The real issue is the civil-military imbalance. “We have to ask ourselves, why is it that every single elected prime minister faces these ouster challenges and why not a single one has ever completed a full five-year term?”
But hubris, heavy-handedness, and a habit of ditching his friends and not working with the opposition may also be responsible for Khan’s possible exit.
“A major factor [is] his inability to keep his friends close and his enemies closer … He had a marriage of convenience with men he once called thieves; but after coming to power, he did not engage with them from a position of strength,” Younis adds.
“This holier-than-thou attitude that Khan has, where he sees himself above the dirty business of politics, is Khan’s greatest weakness.”
Pakistan versus India: Nuclear powers by the numbers
India and Pakistan, two major nuclear powers, are facing their sharpest tensions in decades.
Pakistan versus India: Nuclear powers by the numbers
India and Pakistan, two major nuclear powers, are facing their sharpest tensions in decades.