On the cricket field, Pakistan’s Imran Khanlink was agalvanizing captain and leader—a talisman who knitted together a gaggle ofmercurial talents and journeymen into a cohesive whole, which overcameextraordinary odds to famously beat England to lift the Cricket World Cupin 1992.
There were glimpses of these qualities when Khan rose to become Pakistan’sPrime Minister in 2018: Campaigning on an anti-graft ticket, he broughttogether aspirational workers, Islamic hardliners and the nation’s powerfulmilitary to derail the political juggernaut of his longtime nemesis, formerPrime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Yet since coming to power, the self-styled bold reformer has turnedunnervingly divisive. Khan has been stubbornly unwilling to makecompromises with opponents, while handing concessions to unsavory actorslike far-right party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, or TLP, despite it stagingdeadly protestslink.After almost four years of U-turns, antagonizing rivals and alienatingsupporters, Khan, 69, today cuts a bitter figure, sulking at Joe Biden’sfailure to call himlink followinghis own election victory, and ranting—without evidence—about a U.S.-sponsoredplot to oust himlink.
Motivated seemingly by spite, and against the advice of his own ForeignMinistry and Armed Forces, he embraced Vladimir Putin just as the RussianPresident invaded sovereign neighbor Ukraine. “What a time I have come, somuch excitement!” Khan told journalistslinkFeb.23 on a red carpet during a visit to Moscow.
“[Angered] at Biden’s snubs, [Khan] used the crisis as an opportunity,”says Murtaza Solangi, a veteran political commentator and former DirectorGeneral of Radio Pakistan.
It’s quite a departure from the Khan who delivered a letterlink tothe U.N. office in Islamabad in 1999 to condemn “the complete apathy andindifference towards the plight of the innocent Chechens who are beingsystematically annihilated by the Russians,” as supporters for hisTehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party chanted “death to Russia.”
As a man who calls Osama Bin Laden a “martyrlink” while praising Beijing’streatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority, Khan appears to be capable of veryselective reasoning. But by embracing Putin, thecricketer-turned-politician, playboy-turned-conservative, defender ofIslam-turned-apologist forMuslim genocidelink, may have finallybecome ensnared in his own mind-bending contortions.
Soon after his Moscow visit, Khan was left fighting for his political lifefollowing a dozen defections from PTI*, *which sparked a no confidence votethat he only sidestepped by dissolving parliament and calling freshelections. He justified the move by claiming that his challengers were aU.S.-orchestrated fifth column, plunging Pakistan into a constitutionalcrisis.
On Thursday, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled that Khan was unconstitutionalby dissolving the parliament and set a fresh no confidence vote for April 9that the Prime Minister looks certain to lose. If he does, lawmakers willbe required to elect a caretaker Prime Minister from their number to leadthe nuclear-armed country of 220 million. That leader would technically beallowed to hold power until elections due in August 2023, although theopposition has indicated it would likely seek a fresh mandate in comingmonths.
Ultimately, Khan’s relentless taunting of the U.S. torpedoed hisrelationship with Pakistan’s powerful military, which remains much moreinterested in retaining good relations with Washington. While Khan hasrefused to condemn Putin’s invasion, insisting, like China, on remaining“neutral” link anddeflecting uncomfortable questions onto U.S. foreign policy, Army ChiefGeneral Qamar Javed Bajwa told an international security dialoguelinkApril2 that the “thousands of people … killed, millions made refugees and halfof Ukraine destroyed … cannot be condoned.”
Khan’s relationship with the top brass was already frayed after he refusedto endorse Bajwa’s choice for the new chief of Pakistan’s fearsomeintelligence services, or ISI, because of his close relationship with theincumbent, General Faiz Hameed. As soon as Khan belatedly greenlit theswitch, the opposition sensed weakness and pounced with the no-confidencevote. “His relationship with the Army Chief is pretty much shot,” saysMichael Kugelman, the senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow WilsonCenter.*Pakistan’s no confidence vote*
Given that no Pakistani Prime Minister has ever finished a five-year term,it may be unfair to characterize Khan’s stint in power as a failure. Butsuccesses are difficult to identify for the swashbuckling former cricketer,who lurched from international playboy and husband of Jemima Goldsmith—aBritish socialite and close friend of Princess Diana—into Islamicconservatism and a staunch defender of the Taliban in a little over adecade. The election will largely determine whether the world’s fifth-mostpopulous nation tilts even further toward Russia and China or shifts backto aligning with the U.S. and Europe.
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It’s certainly going to be more difficult for Khan to mount a comeback thanfour years ago, when he had the full backing of the military, whichlaunched a slew of strong-armed tactics to overturn a 13-point lead held bySharif’s incumbent PML-N party just weeks before the July ballot. The 2018vote, which Khan hailed as the “cleanest election” in Pakistan’s history,had its result rejected by six other parties before the count had evenfinished, citing “serious irregularities,” such as the ejection ofobservers.
“It doesn’t matter whether you voted for Imran Khan or not,” says MohammadHaris, a door-to-door salesman from Rawalpindi. “Even if you voted forsomeone else, your vote still got counted for him. Now we’re all sufferingbecause of how expensive things are. Our businesses have been destroyed.Everyone is crying.”
Khan’s disastrous bungling of the economy defines him for ordinaryPakistanis today. A revolving door of Finance Ministers is indicative ofthe failure to put right many inherited problems, which have beencompounded by mismanagement and global headwinds like the pandemic andsoaring oil prices.
In 2018, Khan pledged not to follow previous administrations’ “beggingbowl” tactics of foreign borrowing in order to end Pakistan’s cycle ofdebt. But less than a year later he struck a deal with the IMF to cutsocial and development spending while raising taxes in exchange for a $6billion loan. The deal ultimately spurred inflation in the country, whichtoday is the highest across South Asia. In January, Pakistan’s consumerprice index, a measure of inflation, rose to 13%link,squeezing the middle class and causing living standards to deteriorate.
In November, Khan unveiled a $709 million package of food subsidieslinktooffset the financial burden of soaring prices of essentials such as flour,ghee and some pulses, trumpeting it as “Pakistan’s biggest ever welfareprogram.” But ever more families are being pushed to the brink.
“My business is still profitable—by the grace of Allah—but my customershave suffered a lot,” says Muhammad Azeem, owner of a perfume shop inRawalpindi. “The truth is that the price of raw materials has increased sosharply that we’ve been forced to raise our prices to keep up our margins.”
Overseas, Khan had some success positioning himself as a developing worldleader pushing for debt relief and countering Islamophobia, cementingPakistan as a key actor for regional diplomacy on neighboring Afghanistan,while bolstering relations with some influential countries, such as Turkeyand Russia. “He does deserve credit for getting Pakistan to engage moredeeply with the world, particularly at a moment when India has been tryingto isolate it,” says Kugelman.
However, Khan’s perceived closeness to Putin has proven a major misstep.Like his embrace of Beijinglink,economic expediency appears to lie at the heart of relations. In Moscow,the two leaders discussedlink,among other things, the $2.5 billion Pakistan Stream gas pipeline, whichMoscow wants to build between Karachi and Kasur. Yet there were ways tomaintain commercial links without engaging in damaging optics. Just askEuropelink.
To win an election without military backing would be a feat even moreremarkable than Khan’s fabled 1992 cricketing triumph. Still, the attacksKhan has weathered over the last week have already roused the PTI rank andfile, energizing supporters whom Khan has already ordered out onto thestreet in a show of force, heightening the always looming specter ofpolitical violence. “In Pakistan, the [anti-U.S.] narrative plays verywell, particularly within key components of the electorate like youngconservative, middle-class voters,” says Kugelman. “And I’m sure that he’llbring it up a lot.”
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