ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan faces the first majorchallenge to his leadership as an orange-turbaned rival he calls ‘MaulanaDiesel’ marches to Islamabad with thousands of supporters hoping to bringdown the government.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman has dominated the airwaves in recent days with hiscalls to unseat his old adversary Khan.

The prime minister, he says, did not win last year’s election, but was”selected” by the powerful security establishment, a suggestion denied byKhan, but spread widely by Pakistan’s opposition since even before the July2018 election.

“This movement will continue until the end of this government,” Rehman toldreporters ahead of the march. “There is no other way… to bring Pakistanback on the democratic path.” Rehman, who heads the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam(JUI-F), has been leading supporters from across Pakistan for days towardsIslamabad, with tens of thousands expected to converge on the capital.

He says they will arrive by October 31, but so far has refused to clarifywhat happens next.

It is a scenario Khan himself is familiar with. As opposition leader in2014, he organized months of mass protests in Islamabad that failed in abid to bring down the government.

With the ability to mobilize tens of thousands of madrassa students, JUI-Fprotests have a history of stirring unrest, and authorities are sealing offthe capital’s diplomatic enclave with shipping containers, Press TV hasreported.

A violent crackdown risks sparking a wider backlash in the Muslim-majoritycountry, where mainstream politicians have long tried to keep theconservative right on side.

Rehman’s bad blood with Khan runs deep. Khan ran on an anti-corruptionagenda in 2018 and called out ‘Maulana Diesel,’ as he dubbed him, for hisalleged participation in graft involving fuel licenses.

Rehman, in turn, refers to the former World Cup-winning cricketer as “theJew,” citing his first marriage to Jemima Goldsmith, along with incoherentanti-Semitic conspiracies.

Rehman, whose orange turban sports a traditional pattern from his northwesthometown, lost his parliamentary seat in 2018 to a candidate from Khan’sPakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party.

Still smarting from that loss, Rehman has chosen this moment carefully.

Khan’s government has been under pressure for months as anger simmers overthe dire state of the economy.

Unemployment, double-digit inflation, and rising utility costs have hitordinary Pakistanis hard, issues other opposition parties have also railedagainst, and Rehman has been eager to exploit the unhappiness during themarch.

As the protest moved toward the capital this week, traders across thecountry launched a two-day strike, piling further pressure on Khan.