Pakistan’s Imran Khan faces indictment but PM Sharif feels the heat

Mahnoor Irfan

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan is expected to be indicted for contempt of court on Thursday — a charge that could land him in prison and disqualify him from politics for five years. Even if he is convicted, however, he and his supporters could remain a thorn in the side of the man who replaced him, Shehbaz Sharif.

Since Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April, he has run into multiple legal problems. Some stem from a fiery speech he made on Aug. 20, in which he threatened police officials and a judge who had approved a detention order against his personal chief of staff, Shahbaz Gill.

“We will not spare you,” he vowed. Addressing Magistrate Zeba Chaudhry, he added, “Get ready, we will also take action against you.”

On Monday, the Islamabad High Court ordered authorities to drop a charge of terrorism against Khan in connection with the speech. The contempt charge remains in play, though, and could short-circuit Khan’s plans for a quick return to power.

Days after he lost his job, Khan launched an aggressive campaign to force fresh elections and win it back. Despite offering no solid proof, the former cricket star struck a chord by claiming to have been the victim of a foreign-orchestrated plot. His Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party’s convincing victory in Punjab by-elections in July only emboldened him and, according to a PTI official who spoke on condition of anonymity, strengthened his belief in a “wider conspiracy” involving the military establishment, the opposition and the judiciary.

Khan’s attacks on the powerful military, in particular, have raised eyebrows in a country where the army plays an influential role in politics. Experts and insiders see a series of complicated calculations behind Khan’s strategy.

Ayesha Siddiqa, an expert in Pakistani politics based at the University of London, said Khan’s “game was to manipulate the [military] echelons” to support him, not to push the army away from politics. “Like [the] rest of Pakistan’s political elite, Khan wants to harness the military for his own use against his opponents.”

The PTI official  said Khan also wanted to put the military establishment under pressure. The official said this was necessary to demonstrate his ability to shape the political landscape in ways that could “hurt” those known for “political manipulations.”

At the same time, many say Khan saw a chance to attract more voters. A well-placed, Punjab-based leader in Prime Minister Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) said Khan sought to win the “anti-establishment vote in Punjab,” the largest province.

The PML-N leader said Khan’s narrative was decisive in the Punjab vote, handing the PTI 15 out of 20 seats. The PTI also won another seat in a Karachi by-election in August, adding to his strength and making him politically “more dangerous and popular than he was before April 2022,” the PML-N leader added.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has been resisting Khan’s pressure to call a general election.

The victories gave Khan a more solid footing from which to demand a general election. The ruling coalition led by Sharif’s PML-N has resisted his calls, on the grounds that the next vote is not legally due until later next year. Pakistan’s economic woes, concerns about a possible debt default and especially the recent catastrophic floods have all made holding an early election more difficult. But many say the real reason for the resistance is the fear that Khan would win big.

The PML-N is “worried” because Khan has “captured [the] popular imagination,” Ayesha said.

The PTI source said, “Our demand [for elections] is the best way to challenge those who conspired [against us],” adding, “We are too powerful to be ignored or sidelined.”

Given the political tailwind Khan seems to be riding, some of his opponents may be hoping he trips on his own words and winds up convicted of contempt. But just as his ouster from office did not make him less of a political force, his imprisonment or disqualification would not necessarily help the PML-N or the military.

The ruling coalition already faces heavy criticism over its move to withdraw subsidies for electricity and fuel in order to secure funding from the International Monetary Fund. If Khan, who has been out on bail, is arrested or banned from politics, it would likely trigger public “disturbances,” Ayesha warned.

The PML-N seems well aware of this risk as well, with the official saying Khan’s party would surely try to organize a “countrywide movement” that might even turn “violent.”

There may be more fundamental worries for the PML-N coalition. The official from Khan’s PTI argued that any attempt to push him out of politics could render “the entire federation dysfunctional.”

Already, the PTI rules two out of the four provinces of Pakistan — Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. No central government in Pakistan can possibly “function without the cooperation of half of its constituent units,” added the PTI leader, who argued that a “paralyzed federation” could force the government to call elections.

As Thursday’s likely indictment approaches and Khan’s fate hangs in the balance, it is impossible to predict how the case will turn out. But whatever happens, a new wave of political instability may be on the horizon — adding to the flooded and cash-strapped country’s woes.

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