Pakistan’s most populous province, Punjab, is currently subject to an uncanny political and legal crisis, with Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf determined to trigger snap polls in the belief that it will emerge victorious after ridding itself of a chief minister of doubtful loyalty, Parvez Elahi of the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid). Khan’s opposition in Punjab, which rules at the center, is trying its best to use not-so-clear legal ways of taking over the province and prevent the PTI from paving the way for early elections, which he is projected to win due to a groundswell of public support.
Khan has been repeatedly calling on the security establishment to facilitate his desires but, for the first time, isn’t finding any takers. To his advantage, Khan has a cratering economy—aided in large part by global trends—stoking public resentment, with the ruling coalition facing a choice of accepting IMF conditions that doom it in the eyes of the Pakistani public or avoiding default by taking “tough” decisions. After initially accusing the U.S. of ousting his government, Khan has turned his sights on former Army chief Gen. (retd.) Qamar Javed Bajwa, blaming him for all his party’s governance failures. Unsurprisingly, this has yet to lure the incumbent military leadership to his support.
The ruling coalition is led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who can survive economically by accepting the IMF’s harsh conditions—which the people of Pakistan hate—and removing all subsidies to ensure the revival of a $7.2 billion aid package. The federal government also claims it will receive $4 billion from “friendly countries” to avoid default. All this means little to the general public, which could punish his government by thinking that Imran Khan can save the economy. No one is thinking of—or is not equipped to think about—the terms of what Pakistan is actually suffering from.
How will Khan bring the IMF to heel and defuse the economic crisis with “charisma”? The PTI chief’s rhetoric is sadly a prescription for Pakistan’s undoing. In alienating the U.S. and the country’s security establishment, he has sought to cause rifts within the military by accusing it of deserting its traditional role, all the while ignoring the role it admittedly played in his own rise to power. In more ways than one, Pakistan may be facing its worst “internal’ crisis, set to worsen as the “isolationist charisma” of Khan—whether in or outside the government—serves as a “new” way to further confuse the people over the real reasons behind the crisis they are facing.