Ousted PM Khan retains popularity, to alarm of govt and military

NEW YORK • Allies of Pakistan's former prime minister Imran Khan have been arrested.

Media outlets and public figures considered sympathetic to him have been intimidated or silenced.

He has been hit with charges under Pakistan's anti-terrorism Act and faces the prospect of arrest.

For weeks, Pakistan has been gripped by a political showdown between the ruling establishment and Mr Khan, the former cricket star-turned-populist politician who was ousted from the prime minister post this year.

The drama has laid bare the perilous state of Pakistani politics - a winner-takes-all game in which security forces and the justice system are wielded as weapons to sideline those who have fallen out of favour with the country's powerful military establishment or political elite.

That playbook has been decades in the making, and it has turned the country's political sphere into a brutal playground in which only a few elite leaders dare play.

It has also rendered the Pakistani public deeply disillusioned with the political system and the handful of family dynasties that have been at the top of it for decades.

Mr Khan's own meteoric rise from the fringes of politics to the prime minister's office in 2018 was a showcase for how hard-bitten Pakistan's politics have become:

His competitors were winnowed from the electoral field by criminal charges, and by threat and intimidation from security forces.

Once in office, he and his supporters employed those same tools to harass and silence journalists and political opponents who criticised him.

Even after falling out with military leaders and being removed from office this year in a no-confidence vote, the charismatic politician has been able to keep himself and his party at the centre of Pakistani politics.

It is a demonstration of his ability to tap the public's deep-seated frustration with the political system and wield the kind of populist power once relegated to Pakistani religious leaders.

That popularity has alarmed the new government led by Mr Shehbaz Sharif, and the military establishment, which began picking off his supporters and have now turned the justice system on Mr Khan himself.

But the well-worn playbook seems to be doing little to keep him in check, at least so far, and some analysts fear the showdown could erupt into violence.

"The former prime minister has been accused of threatening government officials - they are serious allegations bringing the confrontation between him and the federal government to a head," said Mr Zahid Hussain, an Islamabad-based political analyst and columnist for Dawn, the country's leading daily. "Any move to arrest him could ignite an already volatile political situation."

Since Pakistan's founding 75 years ago, the nuclear-armed nation has been plagued by political volatility and military coups.

Even in the calmest of times, the country's military establishment has been the invisible hand guiding electoral politics, ushering its allies into positions of power and pushing away rivals.

The last prime minister to be driven from office before Mr Khan, Nawaz Sharif - the older brother of the current prime minister - was disqualified from holding office in 2017 over corruption charges in a controversial verdict by the Supreme Court.

The elder Sharif has sought refuge in London, joining a long line of political figures effectively exiled from Pakistan under the threat of criminal charges.

In an echo of that political script, Mr Khan on Sunday was charged under Pakistan's anti-terrorism Act after giving a speech to thousands of supporters in the capital, Islamabad, in which he threatened legal action against senior police officers and a judge involved in the recent arrest of one of his top aides.

The charges intensified the showdown between the government and Mr Khan, and added to a wave of reports of harassment, arrest and intimidation aimed at journalists and allies of Mr Khan in recent weeks that many view as a coordinated effort by authorities to dampen his political prospects.

But the crackdown appears to have heightened Mr Khan's popularity, analysts say, bolstering his claims that the military establishment conspired to topple his government in April.

"What differentiates this moment from previous moments is the amount of sheer street power Khan has," said Dr Madiha Afzal, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

"And street power makes a difference in Pakistan even when it does not translate into electoral votes."

In recent months, Mr Khan has regularly drawn tens of thousands of supporters onto the streets, where he has lashed out at the current government and the military.

NYTIMES