faq
Since the arrest of ex-Prime Minister Khan, protesters and Pakistani police have been fighting in different parts of the country before Khan was released. Why did the situation escalate so?
Who is Imran Khan?
Imran Khan became known worldwide as a cricketer, as captain of the Pakistani national cricket team. More than 30 years ago, in 1992, he won the Cricket World Cup for Pakistan. Cricket is the most popular sport in Pakistan and Khan became a national hero. Khan has also repeatedly made international headlines – in tabloids thanks to various affairs. He has two sons from a marriage to a British billionaire heiress.
Imran Khan was Prime Minister of Pakistan from 2018 to 2022.
Four years after winning the World Cup, he was drawn to politics. In 1996 he founded the nationalist party PTI, the Pakistan Movement for Justice (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf). Since then he has also been the leader of the party. He was Prime Minister of Pakistan from 2018 to 2022. In April of last year, he had to resign from his post following a vote of no confidence. Since then, Khan has repeatedly called for mass protests. In November, an assassin shot Khan three times in the leg.
Khan grew up in Lahore as the son of a civil engineer, not part of the political or financial elite. He moved to England for high school and later studied politics and economics in Oxford. He also became captain of the cricket team there in 1974. Three years earlier he had already started playing for the Pakistan national team.
What triggered the protests now?
On Tuesday, Imran Khan appeared at an appointment at the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad – apparently a good opportunity for the authorities to arrest him. The arrest was spectacular: around 50 members of the anti-corruption agency’s special unit harassed him in an office as he was signing a document. They then led him into an armored vehicle.
A video of the arrest soon went viral on social media in Pakistan. Thousands then took to the streets. The PTI party leadership called on its supporters to protest Khan’s arrest. First the protests were only in the capital Islamabad, then in many parts of the country. Demonstrators stormed a military compound and destroyed the home of a senior military officer.
Why was Khan arrested?
The US was behind the no-confidence vote against him, as Khan has repeatedly claimed. Since then, the 70-year-old has repeatedly called for new elections. And that may have worried his political opponents. Actually, there should be new elections this year. Experts then consider Kahn’s re-election to be quite likely.
And: The military only warned him about defamation at the beginning of the week. Khan had previously accused a military officer of planning an assassination plot against him. For a long time it was taken for granted that the military always supported Imran Khan. Some even claim that generals made his election as prime minister possible in 2018.
At the same time, the government has long raised allegations of corruption, money laundering and libel against Khan. There are several lawsuits against him. Khan and his party are defending themselves against it legally. He suspects a military and government conspiracy behind the assassination attempt on him in November. Both rejected the allegations.
Back in March, security forces tried to arrest the former prime minister at his home in his hometown of Lahore, which was barricaded like a fortress. His supporters then protested so long that the police finally withdrew.
What does the situation mean now?
Pakistan’s political landscape is difficult to fathom. Corruption and intrigues are widespread. Again and again there are political coups. On the one hand there is the intellectual elite, the establishment, then there are the military – and the rural population in different parts of the country, many of them supporters of Khan and his PTI party.
According to polls, Khan is currently the most popular politician, especially among young people. As a populist, he is repeatedly accused of hardly offering any political solutions. He stylizes himself as a victim and incites his followers. And his opponents have apparently underestimated the strong support for Khan in the population, as the ongoing protests are now showing. For them he is their national hero: Muslim and self-confident.
On the other side is the military and the two most important families in the country: Bhutto and Sharif. Both families regularly provide the office of Prime Minister. This office is currently held by Shebaz Sharif.