‘PAKISTAN’S ELECTION COULD BE A FARCE’: FORMER PM IMRAN KHAN WRITES FROM PRISON

Fri 05 January 2024:

New Delhi: In an opinion piece for The Economist, former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was arrested in August 2023 after a trial court found him guilty of corrupt practices, has warned that “Pakistan’s election could be a farce.”

“Today Pakistan is being ruled by caretaker governments at both the federal level and provincial level. These administrations are constitutionally illegal because elections were not held within 90 days of parliamentary assemblies being dissolved,” the former prime minister wrote from prison.

“The public is hearing that elections will supposedly be held on February 8th. But having been denied the same in two provinces, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, over the past year – despite a Supreme Court order last March that those votes should be held within three months – they are right to be sceptical about whether the national vote will take place.”

He further criticises the tainted actions of the country’s Election Commission, alleging bias against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

“Not only has it [the Election Commission] defied the top court but it has also rejected my Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party’s nominations for first-choice candidates, hindered the party’s internal elections and launched contempt cases against me and other PTI leaders for simply criticising the commission,” he wrote.

“Whether elections happen or not, the manner in which I and my party have been targeted since a farcical vote of no confidence in April 2022 has made one thing clear: the establishment – the army, security agencies and the civil bureaucracy – is not prepared to provide any playing field at all, let alone a level one, for PTI.”

He accused the establishment, including the army and security agencies, of orchestrating his government’s removal under pressure from the US.

He mentioned the alleged American interference attempt through a State Department official’s message.

“In March 2022, an official from America’s State Department met Pakistan’s then ambassador in Washington, D.C. After that meeting, the ambassador sent a cipher message to my government. I later saw the message, via the then foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and it was subsequently read out in cabinet.”

“In view of what the cipher message said, I believe that the American official’s message was to the effect of: pull the plug on Imran Khan’s prime ministership through a vote of no confidence, or else. Within weeks our government was toppled and I discovered that Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, had, through the security agencies, been working on our allies and parliamentary backbenchers for several months to move against us.”

The Economist noted that Pakistan’s government and America’s State Department deny Khan’s allegations of American interference in Pakistani politics.

In the piece, he recounted public protests against the regime change, subsequent electoral victories in by-elections, and economic challenges under the new administration.

He further highlights personal and party hardships, including assassination attempts, abductions, and legal persecution.

“Unfortunately, the establishment had decided I could not be allowed to return to power, so all means of removing me from the political landscape were used. There were two assassination attempts on my life. My party’s leaders, workers and social-media activists, along with supportive journalists, were abducted, incarcerated, tortured and pressured to leave pti. Many of them remain locked up, with new charges being thrown at them every time the courts give them bail or set them free. Worse, the current government has gone out of its way to terrorise and intimidate PTI’s female leaders and workers in an effort to discourage women from participating in politics,” he wrote.

Lastly, he advocated for fair and free elections as the only solution to Pakistan’s crises.

“The only viable way forward for Pakistan is fair and free elections, which would bring back political stability and rule of law, as well as ushering in desperately needed reforms by a democratic government with a popular mandate. There is no other way for Pakistan to disentangle itself from the crises confronting it. Unfortunately, with democracy under siege, we are heading in the opposite direction on all these fronts.”

-The Wire

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