The arrest and incarceration of Pakistan’s charismatic former prime minister Imran Khan in a solitary cell—even as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif prepares to dissolve Parliament and announce polls in which the cricketer-turned-politician, convicted for three years in a case of graft, is ineligible to contest—may seem like his day of reckoning is finally here. His Armageddon. But is it?
On May 9, when Imran was dragged from his Lahore home, his supporters poured into the streets, ransacking the Pakistan Army headquarters in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, the Lahore Corps Commander’s home and a war memorial in an unprecedented challenge to the Pakistan Army. This time, there was barely a whimper despite the 70-year-old icon yet again fervently appealing to his followers to protest if he was arrested.
The streets stayed silent even after people knew he was in solitary confinement at Attock Fort in a dank cell on death row, his lawyers and medical team denied access, and deprived of the amenities he enjoyed in May when the Chief Justice of Pakistan housed him in a guesthouse rather than jail. Which, of course, begs the question. Does the contrast between then and now — the space of a mere three months — signals the end of Imran Khan’s 27-year-long dream run? Is he no longer a political force to reckon with, his victory in the 2018 polls an Army-engineered sham?
It may be too soon to consign Imran to the dustbin of history. The lack of public demonstrations of sympathy after the August 5 arrest may have to do with his supporters simply being afraid of facing the heat, especially with Section 144 imposed around Attock jail.
“It’s a climate of fear,” Imran’s supporters say, adding that 13,000 protesters are still behind bars. The party faithful, the wives and families of serving officers in the Army sacked or replaced in a massive Army purge, and members of his immediate family, mainly his nephews and sisters seen exhorting the mobs, do not want to test the waters again.
Barring his key deputy, Shah Mahmood Qureshi (with prime ministerial ambitions of his own), there’s been an exodus from Imran’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, with even vocal aide Fawad Chaudhry joining a party floated by former PTI leader Jahangir Tareen. The latter’s confabulations with the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) in London before launching the Istehkam-e-Pakistan party has led Imran to repeatedly allude to the ‘London Plan’, openly accusing the Army and political parties of colluding to erase him from Pakistan’s political landscape.
The muzzling of the press by the Sharif-led Pakistan Democratic Movement government, where television anchors were barred from mentioning Imran’s name, was one part of the plan.
But all it has done is reinforce reports of the storied bad blood between the new Army Chief Gen Syed Asim Munir, who was summarily sacked as head of the counterintelligence Inter-Services Intelligence by Imran when he was prime minister. Few realise that Imran’s alienation of key allies—the United States, Saudi Arabia and the UAE—and his inept handling of the economy in the face of good advice lies at the heart of the moves to lay the ground for a Minus-Imran formula in the forthcoming elections.
The flaw is that while similar tactics have been employed before by successive Army chiefs against political opponents like former prime ministers Mian Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, and their kin, placing politicians in a Category ‘C’ cell as you would a murderer or felon to break their spirit, has always had the opposite effect. It whips up public sympathy and feeds into the narrative that yet another popular political icon is paying the price for not playing ball with the military establishment.
The game of political checkers doesn’t always go according to plan. Super-imposing Imran over the Punjab strongman and three-time former PM Mian Nawaz Sharif in 2018 is what brought Pakistan to its current impasse. In fact, while the Army may have mended fences with the Sharif elder, it still doesn’t have all its knights in a row. Imran’s PTI swept local body polls in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa capital, Peshawar, a mere 48 hours after his arrest.
Imran faces hundreds of cases, including the Toshakhana case for not declaring the income from a sale of official gifts, an illegal land purchase from a London realtor, terrorism, and treason for publicising a secret cypher that he claimed was a Washington missive to remove him from office. Convicted, he is ineligible to lead his party, hold office or stand for elections, which may be postponed to next year.
A redrawing of constituencies based on a new census will give the major political players—and the Army Chief—time to win back popular support by boosting the economy after a financial infusion from the IMF and World Bank. Gen Munir is expected to oversee the interim government. But once polls are held—this year or the next—the military must cede space to a legitimately elected government.
Barely three months ago, another ‘London Plan’ crafted by Imran’s first wife Jemima Goldsmith had been in the works, her brother Zach Goldsmith, a British MP, pushing for an amnesty. Designer suitcases packed, Imran Khan Niazi’s name tags tucked away from sight, tickets bought, dates fixed—this was Imran Khan’s ‘great escape’. He would fly out to London alone.
The plan quickly unravelled when Imran and his third wife, Bushra Bibi, had a massive showdown for him contemplating abandoning her to the wolves circling the former first couple.
Now, which ‘London Plan’ will be in play? Does Imran have the stomach to stay and fight? Or will he fall back on the time-honoured tactic of an offensive from a foreign shore?