In Pakistan, Imran Khan faces a challenge fiercer than the World Cup
Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan
often uses cricketing analogy in communicating. Referring to the police’s
attempts to arrest him for failing to appear before a lower court, that then
ordered his arrest, Khan averred, “They (his political opponents) want
to get me out of the match so that they can win the elections.”
While in Punjab and Khyber
Pukhtunkhwa, whose assemblies were dissolved by the ruling party there, Khan’s
Tehreek-i-Insaaf, provincial elections
have been announced for summer, national election are due in autumn, following
the National Assembly completing its full term in August.
Not only are elections at stake,
but – in case Khan wins – whether he would be around to regain his chair,
whence he was ousted in a vote of no-confidence
in April last year. By going after Khan, the ruling coalition hopes to have a
like verdict as befell his predecessor Nawaz
Sharif in the Panama Papers’ case in which Sharif was barred from holding
office for life.
In the current crisis, Khan has held out at his
Zaman Park residence in Lahore, with crowds of his supporters denying the
police access. The face-off over two days resulted in some three score injured on both sides.
This is seemingly a steep price for Khan’s alleged
misdemeanor – sale at a profit of mementos bought from the toshakhana at
discounted rates that had been received by Khan when prime minister. However,
another non-bailable warrant stems from threatening a woman
judge and the police at an earlier rally.
Besides the ruling coalition of unlikely
partners – the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and Pakistan Peoples’ Party –
others hoping to take advantage of the opportunity of putting Khan away are the
Pakistan Army and - per Khan - the United States (US).
Clearly, Khan has a more formidable array
against him than he ever faced in his cricketing days.
Imran Khan is very likely to clutch at straws
as he navigates the challenge. He has alluded to a foreign conspiracy in the US looking for a scapegoat
for its Afghanistan debacle. Since Khan consistently stood against its presence
and activities in the region, he makes for a plausible fall guy.
Even if the American denial is accepted, that the theory helps Khan tap
into the reservoir of anti-American sentiment present has undoubted political
utility.
As for the Pakistan Army, it has lost its uses
for its ‘selected’ prime ministerial candidate. Having witnessed
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s impromptu stop-over late 2015 at Sharif’s
Raiwind farmhouse, the Army thought Sharif as getting too close to India.
The Army preferred a new prime minister in
place to help reach out to India on Kashmir as part of the
eponymous ‘Bajwa doctrine’, named for its originator, Pakistan’s Army
Chief. In the event, they were sorely disappointed. India changed the very complexion
of the situation in Kashmir by its bold step on Article 370.
Khan complicated the Army’s relations with US too.
The Pakistan Army, faced with being dismissed from frontline state status after
the US’ Afghanistan debacle, wanted to sidle back into good books.
The US has been substituting Pakistan with
India as part of its China-centric pivot to the East. Pakistan has also to keep
it mollified since Pakistan has emulated India in taking an equidistant
stance on the Ukraine War. It also wishes to take advantage of US’ disappointment in India on India’s autonomous
position on the War.
Pakistan is currently in negotiations with the International Monetary
Fund on yet another bailout package. Since the US holds the purse strings, keeping
it placated is priority.
Bye-election results of late last year show that
elections cannot be relied on to keep
him from power. Other measures need thinking up such as making a mountain of a
molehill in the toshakhana case or persisting with the case on
threatening the woman judge, though Khan has apologized since.
That the police has blinked for now means only that the current crisis has passed, but more such crises lie between now and elections.
That such crises
can be defused shows Pakistani resilience, but if the Army steps in citing persisting
political instability or if Khan of his deprived of an election win later, the
loser is democracy.
