Imran Khan became a Pakistani cricketing legend who transformed international cricket with his call for neutral umpires. Jahangir Mohammed argues that he has already changed Pakistani politics and put all of Pakistan’s institutions on trial. He is also destined to become a political legend, no matter how his innings comes to an end.

Has Imran Khan Played His Last Innings for Pakistan?

Imran Khan’s political journey in Pakistan has been truly remarkable. In a country where two families and the military have dominated the political system (backed by the US), he established a new party, Pakistan Tehreek -E- Insaaf (PTI) in 1996, became Prime Minister in 2018, and created a mass movement for reform in 27 years.  The new party was reminiscent of the first Turkish Islam-orientated parties, with an emphasis on justice, welfare, and independence. Ironically, Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself was imprisoned for four months and banned from politics for life in 1997 before his AK party reign in power began in 2002.

The former cricketer who became a legend playing for his country could have chosen a lucrative career as a cricket commentator and brand marketer, he was never going to be wanting for money. Being married to Jemima, daughter of the wealthy Goldsmith family with whom he has two sons, he could also have enjoyed a happy family life.  However, he first chose a career in charitable works opening the Imran Khan Cancer Hospital, and then a political career dedicated to reforming Pakistan, even sacrificing his marriage to Jemima and his sons for the cause. Few people in Pakistan would make such a sacrifice.

For much of the last 27 years, he has pretty much been a lone outspoken crusader against Pakistani autocracy and its foreign policy, an opponent of the US-led war against Afghanistan and drone strikes, calling for political settlements of problems not war.  In the 1997 and 2002 elections, only Khan himself was able to win a seat for his party, and PTI boycotted the 2008 elections. He seemed to be going nowhere. However, by 2013, PTI was claiming it had 10 million members, making it one of the largest political parties in the world. It was in 2013 that PTI came of age in party politics, winning 7.5 million votes and coming third behind the two dynasty parties. The country was also changing. A younger population was now becoming politically active. They sought a message of hope, better governance, and an end to domestic terrorism which had caused deaths and great suffering among people.

Khan’s mass rallies captivated voters homing in on popular issues in the country, and the message of “Tabdeeli Arahi Hai” (change is coming), and Azadi (freedom and independence from external domination). The two dynasty parties were already tainted with charges of corruption and lost the trust of the people. Despite being charged with corruption and exposure of assets overseas, Benazir Bhutto was pardoned and charges against her dropped in 2007, so she could contest elections in a deal widely believed to have been brokered by the USA with General Pervez Musharraf. It was referred to as a National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) a political deal to drop charges by Musharraf. These days it is referred to as NRO1.  The more recent clearing of corruption cases against the Shariff family members so they can contest the next election is dubbed NRO2.

Imran Khan Sweeps to Power

In April 2016, the Panama Papers exposed the secret offshore companies and properties of Nawaz Shariff, his daughter, and his son-in-law.  The allegation of corruption led first to the disqualification of Shariff as Prime Minister (July 2017) and then a ban from politics for life (April 2018), and eventually a 10-year conviction for corruption.  Imran Khan and PTI were able to make anti-corruption a rallying call in the 2018 election and swept to power with 16.9 million votes but were only able to govern in alliance with five other parties. Within the Pakistani system, some key powers are devolved to the regional governments.  Imran Khan never had the majority in parliament, or control of all the regions to make meaningful changes to implement his reforms.

Nawaz Shariff may well have escaped serious consequences for corruption, as politicians tend to in Pakistan, but he fell out with the military around the same time. This was exposed by the Dawn newspaper leaks of an official internal memo where the army and civilian government rift on who should be tackling terrorism and the fear of isolation by the USA and the West, was exposed in public. The family claim they were innocent and subject to a political vendetta by the military.   The circumstances of Imran Khan’s removal and incarceration, ban from politics, and an internal cipher highlighting the USA agenda against Khan (now leaked), does feel a bit like Groundhog Day in Pakistani politics.

Politicians pledging to tackle corruption in Pakistan is not new, even army Generals like Musharraf pledged to do so.  Yet corruption is so entrenched in the Pakistani political, public, media, judicial and military sectors that in practice there will always be great resistance to change. At the political level that corruption is intimately linked to US military aid, IMF/world bank loans, as well as relationships and gifts from Gulf rulers, and development contracts.

Imran Khan was serious about reforms and Naya (new) Pakistan, tackling corruption, ending the war against Afghanistan, and particularly adopting an independent foreign and domestic policy. In 2018 there was no one else for the army to back so they accepted someone whom they never really expected to get huge support.

In 2021, the Pandora papers revealed 700 Pakistanis whose wealth had been identified offshore, Khan had pledged to investigate and bring people to account.  Few in Pakistan believe that the army generals wanted the real change that Imran Khan wanted to bring.  They tolerated him for a while. However, when the courts allowed Nawaz Shariff to leave for London for medical treatment in November 2019, that was a sign that the dynasty would be back soon, and Imran Khan’s days were numbered.  The generals would have moved to remove Imran Khan from office earlier, except that he seemed to be getting on in Washington – President Donald Trump wanted Khan’s help to get the US out of Afghanistan and reach a deal with the Taliban.  Also, during his three and half year period in office, over two years were spent dealing with the Covid pandemic.  It would make no sense to remove him during that period. However, the grounds were being prepared for his removal with a propaganda misinformation campaign in the Pakistani media, with an opposition alliance known as the Pakistan Democratic Alliance PDM founded in September 2020, focussing on how badly the economy was being managed under PTI.

Imran Khan’s and Pakistan’s Isolation by the USA

The real change in Khan’s fortune came when Joe Biden was elected as President of the USA in January 2021. The Biden administration set about isolating Khan because of his warm relationship with US President Donald Trump (Trump had even offered him help on the Kashmir issue). Relations between Pakistan and the USA deteriorated in August 2021 when the Taliban took power, unexpectedly forcing the US and Western forces to flee in chaos. The US blamed Pakistan for cooperating with the Taliban in what was widely seen as a humiliation for Biden and the US.  During his tenure as Prime Minister, Khan was given the cold shoulder by Biden, the two do not appear to have spoken to each other.  Although military aid, a lifeline for the Pakistani generals, had been cut under Trump.

Imran Khan was determined to follow through on his independent foreign policy path, he would not accept the use of airspace in the country to be used against Afghanistan, nor in the future for the US-led Western cold war to destabilise China and Iran.  Both Afghanistan and Pakistan are key strategic countries where the US must have a presence and influence to achieve its military/economic objectives. Khan was very much his own man when it came to foreign policy, often citing China as a model of how to tackle poverty and end corruption in a country, calling for recognition of the new government in Afghanistan, and above all refusing to commit to continue with US bases in Pakistan.  He was developing good relations and trade with Iran and even started to broker peace talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

“In interview to HBO, PM says country’s territory cannot be used for strikes inside Afghanistan”.

Imran Khan, US Threats, and Removal.

With Prime Minister Khan already reorientating Pakistan towards a changing multi-power world and different foreign policy for the benefit of his country, it was the Russian invasion of Ukraine that would lead to his downfall. The dates of events are significant and point to a US/army/PDM collusion to remove Khan from power.

• 24^th February 2022 Russia invades Ukraine.
• 24^th February 2022 Imran Khan arrives in Russia and meets President Putin on a previously arranged visit, unaware that the invasion would take place the same day. The purpose of the meeting was to secure discounted oil and wheat supplies.
• 1^st March 2022, in a rare move, 22 mainly European nations pressure Pakistan to support a UN resolution condemning the Russian invasion.
• Imran Khan refuses to condemn Russia and calls out Western double standards and responds “What do you think of us? Are we your slaves … that whatever you say, we will do?”. Pakistan maintained neutrality and abstained from the UN vote.
• 7^th March 2022, we know from the leaked cable (cipher) that this was the date of the infamous meeting between the Pakistan ambassador to the US and two US State Department officials including Donald Lu. The document is classified as secret and is now available for anyone to download. It is obvious from the memo that Donald Lu and the Pakistani Ambassador are already aware of a plotted no-confidence vote which had not even been submitted to the National Assembly. The memo makes it clear that Pakistan’s isolation from the US will only end if Imran Khan is not PM, otherwise, things could get much more difficult.
• 8^th March 2022 (the very next day), representatives of opposition parties file a no-confidence motion against Khan in the National Assembly, seeking to remove him from office, accusing him and the PTI of poor governance, mismanaging the economy and foreign policy blunders.
• 17^th March 2022, some 20-plus PTI MNAs announce they are switching sides at Sindh House. The PTI claim they were bribed, and others allege they were intimidated into doing so.
• The opposition alliance wins the no-confidence vote on 29 and 30 March.
• 9^th April 2022, Imran Khan is removed as PM after just three and a half years in power not even completing a full term in office. Shehbaz Shariff brother of Nawaz Shariff, still on corruption charges in the courts, becomes the new PM.

Imran Khan Back to the People.

From the day Khan and PTI were removed from power, anyone who knows about Pakistani politics could predict the two dynasties/army autocracy would do everything in their power to prevent Khan from contesting the elections scheduled to take place by November 2023.    Initially, the army claimed they were “neutrals” in the struggle between political parties, but as the PTI rallies got bigger and popular support for Khan rocketed, with PDM unable to counter it, that pretence had to be dropped.  It has become clear that the generals have always been behind the attempt to destroy Imran Khan and PTI support and to prevent him from running in the next election, which he would almost certainly win by a landslide. Polls suggest that Khan and PTI now have 70% of popular support behind them.

The last 18 months have seen Pakistan being turned into a military dictatorship with a fig leaf of democratic politics. Meanwhile, its economy has descended into a crisis much worse than during the PTI’s term in office, once again being propped up by the IMF, China, and Gulf States.  To go into detail about the tyranny unleashed on the PTI, Imran Khan and almost anyone who supports them would require someone to write a book. PTI workers in their thousands have been locked up, violated, and abused, even women. PTI leaders have been silenced or forced to leave the party through incarceration, intimidation, and threats to them and their families. The country is under martial law and rules all but in name, with military courts being established and the media and social media of the PTI disrupted (some claim with the aid of the external countries). Popular journalists who oppose tyranny have been silenced.  Arshad Shariff was killed, and Imran Riaz Khan disappeared into a black hole.  Large protests are now virtually impossible in Pakistan. Overseas British Pakistanis are also being threatened and some claim abuse.

Khan Hit with a Century of Criminal Charges

Shehbaz Shariff, his son, and Maryam Nawaz have had much more serious cases of corruption dropped by the National Accountability Bureau after they reformed it to their advantage (the head of is also a retired general). Meanwhile, Imran Khan has had assassination attempts, and over 100 criminal cases lodged against him, including everything from terrorism, blasphemy, and corruption. His home has been raided and he was unlawfully kidnapped by military rangers from the court, imprisoned, threatened, and then released.  Eventually, he has been found guilty of flouting the rules on the declaration of gifts for MNAs without a fair trial or due process, or even a chance to present his defence. Khan was sentenced to three years in prison and banned from politics for five years, effectively taking him out of politics in time for the coming election. With his PTI party and leadership virtually destroyed the elections have effectively been rigged in favour of the next generation of the dynasty parties taking power, Maryam Nawaz, or Bilawal Bhutto. Whilst London backs the Shariff clan, Washington favours the Bhutto clan. Neither will have any legitimacy among Pakistanis.

The imprisonment of Khan involved the Toshakhana. This was a Mughal-era name for the public gift depository, in Persian the treasure house. When Mughal emperors received or visited other leaders, gifts were exchanged. They would be deposited in the Toshakhana, and the emperors would use them as gifts for others. The emperors had higher state goals and visions they achieved through them.  Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh have adapted this system for modern usage, allowing MNAs to deposit gifts in the public treasury. If the MNA then wanted to buy the gift back, they could do so at 15% of the valuation price. When Khan came to power, he increased the price to be paid to 50%.  Whilst I find the Pakistani Toshakhana rules ethically repugnant, they are perfectly legal in Pakistan. If Imran Khan is to be investigated and charged for them, then so surely should every previous Prime Minister and many ministers (especially now that the government has had to make all the declarations public under pressure.  All gifts received and bought by ministers dating to 2002 are now public and available online).

Is this Imran Khan’s Last Stand?

Despite all the attempts to smear and eliminate Imran Khan by the Pakistani generals and the Shariff/Bhutto families, he remains the most popular politician in Pakistan and the one on whom most people pin their hopes for a better future. He also remains more trusted than all the other political leaders. All attempts to destroy him simply seem to make him more popular. Nor is he prepared to back down or go into exile.  It is not Khan who is in the dock, rather he has put every Pakistani institution on trial. So far, the weight of evidence against them all; from political parties, democracy, the military, the judiciary, the media, and the police; is that they are thoroughly rotten and corrupt, not fit for purpose, easily intimidated, manipulated, and prone to injustices.  They have all lost any credibility and legitimacy they had.  Of course, ordinary Pakistanis already experience this daily.  Now it is in the open for all the world to see. The tragedy for Pakistan is that there is no institution to hold them all to account for their crimes, and when that happens the people usually resort to revolutionary people’s justice of their own.

The extent to which the Pakistani generals have gone and might go to bring an end to Imran Khan and his party, perhaps indicates that they are not alone in this venture and the benefits being promised to them by external powers are worth taking the risks, only time will tell.  Perhaps the US administration does not want someone who has an independent foreign policy and mind to come to power in Pakistan. The silence of US, UK, and Western politicians is telling. When Imran Khan asked European nations “are we your slaves?”  he forgot there were people in his army and Pakistani politics who would answer yes.  Pakistanis like the people of Latin America and Africa will learn that tackling corruption and poor governance and eroding US and Western influence in their lands are intimately linked. You can’t tackle one without tackling the other.

I do not know if Imran Khan will get another innings.  What I do know is he has woken and inspired the next generation of Pakistanis who will ultimately bring an end to this rotten two-dynasty/army rule in Pakistan.  In his life, he has been a Pakistani cricketing legend and will also become a political legend, no matter how his innings comes to an end. As another Pakistan Independence Day arrives, most Pakistanis can now see that their country is neither Islamic, independent, or even democratic.  It is a military dictatorship in the service of external powers.

Jahangir Mohammed Director of Ayaan Institute

For an examination of Pakistan’s economic and political performance between 2018-2022 read our previously published paper “Pakistan’s Political and Economic Crisis”