All the televised speeches to the nation and all the tricky maneuvers that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan used to cling to power ended in vain. After weeks of heated arguments, the head of government in Islamabad was overthrown by a vote of no confidence in parliament on Saturday night, Pakistani media reported. This has never happened before in the nation’s 75-year history. It was more or less concealed interventions by the military that ousted recalcitrant prime ministers.
This time there was no such drastic turn of events; the proceedings followed parliamentary rules, as strictly demanded by the country’s Supreme Court. The prime minister had previously lost his majority in the National Assembly because his own MPs and important coalition partners had renounced their allegiance.
In the case of Khan, the role of the army is not yet clear. The military stubbornly insists that it did not intervene, but it is also clear that there are growing differences between the so-called “establishment,” as the military is euphemistically called in the country, and the US in dealing with Putin and the war in Ukraine headstrong head of government. The army has castigated Putin’s war as “aggression,” while Khan has refused to condemn Russia. He was even in Moscow on the day of the invasion. A long-planned trip, he said. He could not have known anything about the invasion, it was said from his environment. But even afterwards, the prime minister did not distance himself from Putin.
Last Sunday, Khan tried to evade the vote of no confidence by dissolving parliament and announcing new elections. In so doing, he vowed to create a serious constitutional crisis. But the chief justices declared his move unconstitutional and demanded a return to due process. Analysts rated this as a significant step, the judiciary did not allow itself to be misled by political forces into signing off on a breach of the constitution.
Khan now wants to mobilize protests on the streets
On the other hand, the severe crisis is not over. Khan said in a televised address the night before that he would not recognize a new government. Everyone expects opposition leader Shahbaz Sharif to succeed Khan. He is the brother of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was overthrown over corruption allegations and the Panama Papers. But Khan wants to organize extra-parliamentary resistance, a popular means in Pakistan to drive government officials ahead of them and weaken them.
So the deposed Khan does not want to give up, he is taking his fight to the streets, which he has already carefully prepared ideologically. Khan has been knitting the story for days that only he can save the battered nation as a proud and independent country. Everyone else would only act as puppets for the West and above all for the USA, he scolds. According to Khan, these people allowed the Pakistanis to be reduced to the slaves of other powers. He is a skilled rhetorician and knows how to stir up emotions. He focuses on the accusation that he was the victim of a Western conspiracy. Allegedly there have been tangible threats from the USA, which he does not want to disclose because they are secret.
This fuels insecurity and also subliminal anger among the people. Conspiracy myths are always rife in the foggy lack of transparency in Pakistan’s politics, especially when it comes to the US. Obama’s controversial drone war against extremists along the Afghan border fueled anti-Americanism, and Khan is picking up on this sentiment again. He portrays it as if Washington wanted to bring about regime change and had harnessed the Pakistani opposition to do so. He leaves his opponents as traitors and apparently hopes for the great upsurge of the people, which should smooth his way back to power. Imran Khan’s possible revenge is already clearly noticeable in his announcements and threats.
The former cricket star was once considered a great hope
But will the deposed prime minister do it? Given his rather disappointing government record, it is uncertain whether the foreign policy plot will be enough to mobilize the masses. Large protests are only possible if the security forces allow them and let them run.
Former cricket star Khan, who came to power as an outsider in 2018, was once seen as a great hope, with young voters in particular longing for a way out of the encrusted system in which feudal politician clans – the Bhuttos and the Sharifs – with the arranged by the military and slowed down the broad development of prosperity rather than promoting it. Corruption flourished, democratic control failed due to powerful cliques and networks of the dominant families. Khan has failed in his claim to lead Pakistan into a new era, failed to provide jobs for the youth. And then came the pandemic, hastening Pakistan’s decline, driving up prices and increasing the anguish of the poor.
To avert collapse, Pakistan needs a rescue package from the International Monetary Fund and massive aid from China. But a legitimized and effective government team is also needed in Islamabad, which Khan’s successor must first set up. The majority of a new prime minister will be narrow and rather shaky; possible that there will still be new elections before the regular date in 2023.
A phenomenal cricket captain who once made sporting history, Khan doesn’t want to be seen as a political loser. He promises to play to the last ball. But he probably doesn’t see the vote of no confidence as the end of the game. His successor will have to reckon with him.