Imran Khan - Down But Not Out

Imran Khan’s Pre-emptive Strike Plunges Pakistan Into Political Turmoil. Can His Cocktail Of Charisma And Demagoguery Save Him?

- Hasan Zaidi

His innings had started with breezy cognisance of the helpful conditions. As prime minister of Pakistan since August 2018, Imran Khan would often refer to his government and the country’s powerful army being “on the same page”. And his supporters thought it perfectly normal to gloat about what they referred to as his “hybrid government”—an open acknowledgement that the military was an equal partner in an ostensibly civilian government. Even if Imran made mistakes during his tenure as prime minister—and he made many—he could always rely on the army to back him up and clean up after him. The military tempered not just his erratic governance but also managed the political wheeling-dealing required to keep his rag-tag coalition of allies, his own party ‘electables’ and a boisterous opposition in line. But then, the military stepped back, and the house of cards came crashing down.

On April 3, facing a near-certain ouster through a vote of no confidence in the National Assembly (NA), Imran orchestrated what can only be termed a farcical face-saver—his hand-picked NA Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri summarily rejected the vote proceedings, claiming a “nexus” between “blatant foreign interference” and the motion. Subsequently, Imran recommended the dissolving of the assembly, thereby ending his three-and-a-half-year-old “hybrid experiment”.