Can Imran Khan Make a Comeback?

Pakistan's most popular politician is under attack-and vying for power once more

- By Charlie Campbell. Photograph by Umar Nadeem

Political leaders often boast of inner steel. Imran Khan can point to three bullets dug out of his right leg. It was in November that a lone gunman opened fire on Khan during a rally, wounding the 70-year-old as well as several supporters, one fatally. One bullet damaged a nerve, so my foot is still recovering, says the former Pakistani Prime Minister and onetime cricket icon. I have a problem walking for too long.

If the wound has slowed Khan, he doesn't show it in a late-March Zoom interview. There is the same bushy mane, the easy laugh, prayer beads wrapped nonchalantly around his left wrist. But in the five years since our last conversation, something has changed. Power-or perhaps its forfeiture-has left its imprint. After his ouster in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April 2022, Khan has mobilized his diehard support base in a jihad, as he puts it, to demand snap elections, claiming he was unfairly toppled by a U.S.-sponsored plot. (The State Department denied the allegations.)

The actual intrigue is purely Pakistani. Khan lost the backing of the country's all-powerful military after he refused to endorse its choice to lead Pakistan's intelligence services, known as ISI, because of his close relationship with the incumbent. When Khan belatedly greenlighted the new chief, the opposition sensed weakness and pounced with the no-confidence vote. Khan then took his outrage to the streets, with rallies crisscrossing the nation for months.