Pakistan’s ‘King of Chaos’ Imran Khan continues to win behind bars

Author and journalist Mohammad Hanif writes that Pakistan’s recent elections were supposed to bring a period of stability, but it was desperately needed to deal with the country’s crippling inflation and bitter political divisions. There is.

Instead, they installed a minority government, an unstable and passive coalition unsure of its own mandate.

Two weeks after the election, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (N) and Bilawal Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) formed a government, but the PPP announced that it would not participate.

The midnight announcements by leaders of both parties were somber and had the feel of a shotgun wedding.

Suddenly, Pakistan became a rare democracy in which no one wanted to be prime minister.

The “establishment” (local media’s euphemism for Pakistan’s powerful military) have always believed that general elections are too sensitive to be left to civilian politicians.

This time they opened up the old election strategy and used all the tricks that were successfully deployed in the past.

The main candidate, Imran Khan, was jailed. He faces more than 150 criminal and civil charges, all of which he denies.

A week before the election, he was sentenced in three cases, in one of which he was accused of hastily marrying. His party was denied an electoral symbol and a unified platform, and he was forced to contest as an independent.

Many did not campaign in their constituencies, avoiding police raids. His main opponents were spared many lawsuits against them and were given freedom to campaign.

On election day, social media and mobile phone services were shut down, apparently for security reasons, but in practice Khan’s supporters did not have easy access to polling stations and it was difficult to identify candidates on ballots. This was to ensure that

Mr Khan’s supporters showed remarkable ingenuity, forming WhatsApp groups and creating improvised apps and websites overnight to arrive at polling stations and find candidates.

His party used AI-generated speeches to convey the imprisoned leader’s message. Imran Khan’s prison ID number has become an election slogan.

They campaigned in a guerrilla style and caused a surprise on election day.

Despite all allegations of irregularities, his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) still emerged as the single largest party in the election. The Khan wave on election day was too strong to be contained by routine rigging.

This establishment used 20th century tactics to tame a digitally savvy generation, but they lost.

Voters’ reaction to the military’s tried-and-tested machinations was both polite and defiant. “Thank you, but no thanks, we are not as ignorant and illiterate as you think.” We may not be able to fight you in the street because you have a gun, but this is our stamp on your ballot. Do whatever you like with it.

Imran Khan failed to secure a simple majority in parliament and decided to stand in opposition, refusing to form a government in conjunction with other parties.

He has built his campaign and overall charisma by portraying his opponents as corrupt. He is unwilling to share power with the politicians he has attacked for most of his political career.

Most of Pakistan’s politicians have had to spend time in prison at least once. But no one seems to have had as much fun as Imran Khan.

Rejecting all public platforms to contact his supporters, he won the election from his prison cell with communiqués sent through his lawyers and close relatives.

Last May, when Imran Khan was arrested for the first time since his ouster, his supporters rioted and attacked military posts and other symbols of military power and prestige. Houses of senior generals were set on fire, and some rioters even managed to break into military headquarters.

The repression that followed was swift and brutal.

Most of the PTI’s top leaders were abducted and forced to break with Imran Khan, with some criticizing his politics and others quitting politics for life.

The establishment wanted to send a clear signal that Imran Khan and his party are finished. As Mr. Khan was imprisoned and elections approached, the party was taken over by a second-tier leadership and local followers who played a key role in organizing the battered party’s campaign and aiming for victory.

They were convinced that their leader would not be allowed to return to power, but they showed through their vote that they would not abandon him just because the military wanted him to.

When Imran Khan loses power, he becomes a king of chaos, angry not only with his political opponents but also with the military establishment.

Before being arrested and detained, Imran Khan claimed in a speech that he had been expelled at the behest of the United States for pursuing an independent foreign policy.

Opponents claim that his policies during his time in power were all about his own ego and whims. It is said that during his time in power, he spent more time hunting down his enemies than running the country. Mr. Khan appears to have been distracted during his government’s tenure and failed to make appropriate decisions to curb runaway inflation.

Even within the government, he sounded like an opposition politician, furious with political opponents and the media.

He is a veteran agitator.

After his party lost the 2013 elections, he waged a relentless campaign to overturn the results and laid siege to the capital, Islamabad. He was able to accomplish this with the support of the establishment. He is now the establishment’s biggest enemy, reinvigorated by his party’s results in the polls.

Although his party has decided to remain in the opposition, Imran Khan prefers to develop his politics in the streets, using rallies and social media, rather than in parliament. The current government is already being called the “Losers’ Coalition.” It is literally a coalition of political parties that lost the election to Mr. Khan.

In the two weeks since the results, there appeared to be no enthusiasm among Mr. Khan’s opponents for forming a government.

For the first time, major politicians were reluctant to accept responsibility instead of asserting power.

Pakistan is reluctant to govern as it faces a devastating debt crisis and soaring prices of fuel and food have made life unbearable for the working class. As the military’s role increases in all areas of governance, ruling politicians have to travel around the world seeking relief from international donors.

Many speculate that Imran Khan’s time in prison will make him a more mature politician.

Although he has been a successful heretic, he will not want to become a meek version of himself in order to be accepted by the establishment.

His anger against his old political protectors made him Pakistan’s most popular leader.

He will not want to give it up to run a country that even his defeated enemies seem reluctant to rule.

This is the perfect environment for Imran Khan to continue his jihad, even from his cell as the country’s most famous prisoner number 804.

British-Pakistani author and journalist Mohammed Hanif is a former director of Urdu at the BBC and the author of several plays and novels, including the award-winning Mango Explosion and The Madonna of Alice Batty. I am the author.