Pakistan: As Army-Backed Nawaz Waits in the Wings, Imran Is Down, Not Quite Out

The Pakistan Army now seems determined to ensure that Khan’s immense popularity is not reflected in the elections.

From jail, Imran Khan has proclaimed that the elections will be the "mother of all selections.” Khan will watch Nawaz Sharif be crowned Prime Minister from prison, just as the latter had to witness the former’s "selection” by the Army from behind bars as well in 2018.

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/ The Quint)

Just what kind of a parliamentary election Pakistan will have on 8 February is evident from the two draconian jail sentences handed out last week to former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi – one for corruption and the other for leaking secrets.

Last December, Khan was disqualified from contesting the elections based on an earlier conviction.

From jail, Imran Khan has proclaimed that the elections will be the "mother of all selections.” Khan will watch Nawaz Sharif be crowned Prime Minister from prison, just as the latter had to witness the former’s "selection” by the Army from behind bars as well in 2018.

On 8 February, Pakistan will once again embark on a new/old course of "selecting” a Prime Minister who ought to have no doubts as to who calls the shots in the country.

Army's Conviction To Offset the Imran Effect

Khan was forced out of power in April 2022. But tensions culminated in June 2023 when in a spate of allegations, he accused the Army of trying to destroy his party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI). He also accused the US of colluding with the military to bring him down.

There is little surprise in the court verdicts, given the manner in which the Pakistani State has sought to dismantle Khan and his PTI after his supporters attacked various Army facilities following his arrest in May 2023.

The Army now seems determined to ensure that Khan’s immense popularity is not reflected in the elections. Almost all his prominent party men have been told to resign from the party or placed under arrest, a media blackout is being enforced and there are restrictions on rallies by his supporters.

Just what else the Army will do to neutralise the PTI on election day is not known.

Can Nawaz Sharif Make a Comeback As Pak PM?

Yet Khan and his many supporters have not given up.

According to the Financial Times, they are using unconventional methods, including AI and TikTok rallies to mobilise electors. The PTI is using AI to generate the speeches from notes he is sending out from his jail through his lawyers.

There are digital rallies on TikTok and a chatbot on his Facebook page is listing the candidates the PTI considers its own.

There is an irony in how Khan’s predicament will become the opportunity for former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to return to power in the elections. Recall that Khan had been "se”-elected in 2018 with the backing of the military.

A year earlier in 2017, Nawaz Sharif had been forced out of power on the basis of allegations in the Panama Papers and he went into exile after he was convicted and disqualified.

Sharif has no love lost for the military given the manner in which he was forced out of power by the then Pakistan Army Chief Pervez Musharraf’s coup in 1999, an event which was welcomed by Imran Khan.

He was subsequently tried and even faced the spectre of a death sentence before he was rescued by Saudi Arabia where he spent more than a decade in exile. But he made his peace with Pakistan’s primary power broker – the military – and returned to power with his party in 2013.

After the Panama Papers conviction, he again went into exile in 2019 and lived in London till 2023 and succeeded in having the judgments against him overthrown last November, just in time for the coming elections.

So once again now he has accepted the status of a junior partner of the Army.

The Army is likely to ensure that Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party, which remains strong in Sind, will join a Sharif government as a junior partner. Sharif was the original Army creation of 1990, aimed at offsetting the enormous popularity of Benazir Bhutto.

Upsides and Flipsides of Imran’s Prime Ministerial Stint

As for Imran, he did reasonably well as the Prime Minister. He dealt with a balance of payments and debt crisis with the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and curbed defence spending, promoted policies to increase tax collection and investment which resulted in some economic growth.

But COVID probably undid his tenure and triggered an economic crisis which is now endemic.

As PM, Khan, an ethnic Pathan, took unpopular positions such as supporting the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and demanding the pullout of the Pakistan Army from the tribal areas of Pakistan. He attacked the US for its drone strikes against the Taliban. Not surprisingly, he welcomed the Taliban victory in Afghanistan and sought to make peace with their Pakistani offshoot.

Khan also had to deal with the pressure brought on Pakistan by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to curb terror financing. He was able to obtain compliance on 26 out of 27 points by June 2021. In April 2022, just before he was thrown out, the government succeeded in sentencing Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba chief to 31 years in prison.

In foreign policy, he emphatically rejected the notion of Pakistan recognising Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state. He maintained good ties with the Gulf states and was able to get their support to overcome Pakistan’s economic travails.

Another striking departure from the past was his visit to Moscow just hours after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. An important component of the ties he sought to develop related to Russian energy supplies.

All this got the goat of the United States and the pro-US Pakistan Army.

India Pak’s Bittersweet Ties Vis a Vis the US

A leaked classified Pakistani document noted that the US encouraged Pakistan to throw out Imran Khan. The document was related to a meeting between the Pakistan Ambassador to the US and two State Department officials two weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In the meeting, the top State Department official dealing with South Asia, Assistant Secretary Donald Lu expressed American unhappiness at Pakistan’s stance which Khan said was "neutral”.

The Pakistani report of this meeting was leaked to a US magazine and Khan was accused of leaking it and also waving it at a political rally.

Relations between India and Pakistan during Khan’s tenure were mixed. There was first the episode of the Pulwama terror strike, followed by India’s Balakot bombing and the subsequent India-Pakistan aerial clash.

There is also a credible report of how he sought to make a deal with India but the Article 370 development soured relations. There was a plan approved by the Army for Modi to travel to Pakistan and visit the historic Hinglaj temple. Talks had also led to a ceasefire along the Line of Control in Jammu & Kashmir in February 2021.

Be It Economy or Security, Pakistan’s Internal Issues Are Pressing

The biggest problem that any government in Pakistan will face is its economic situation. The economy contracted in 2023 after two years of growth. Inflation is close to 40 per cent, deficits are growing, debt is sky-high, and investments are scarce, with growth at a standstill.

Any government that comes to power will have to once again go hand in hand with the IMF and the Gulf states.

As it is the domestic security situation is not all that great. The effort to make peace with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) through the good offices of the Afghan Taliban has not worked. The TTP put onerous conditions, including a withdrawal of the Pakistan Army from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the proclamation of Islamic law there, which were simply not acceptable to the Army which had taken measures to strengthen its defences along the Afghan border.

In December, the new Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir visited the US and sought US military and economic aid to fight the TTP. But Washington no longer views the TTP as a threat.

The US is more concerned about managing the Taliban and the growing threat of Islamic State arising from their bases in Afghanistan.

As Pakistani commentator Ayesha Siddiqa noted, his visit was not just as an Army Chief, but as “a de facto martial law administrator” who is directing Pakistan’s political and economic future.

(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)