Pakistan’s powerful political dynasties form an alliance with the military to politically eliminate the man who has become a threat to them. His condemnation contradicts the will of the voters.
He is egocentric, sometimes even anti-Western. He keeps playing with the ideological proximity to Islamists, and as prime minister he didn’t have an outstanding record either. But Imran Khan, the imprisoned Pakistani ex-prime minister, is certainly not corrupt on a large scale. A court of first instance has now sentenced him to imprisonment for precisely this reason. The drama that is currently taking place on the open stage in the nuclear-weapon state of Pakistan follows a clear script: it bears the signature of the almighty military. The country has other concerns.