Imran Khan and the Political Struggles in Pakistan

Although such manifestations of political struggle are commonplace in Pakistan, this time the problems may turn out to be more serious than ever before.

Now 70, Imran Khan, a former cricket star and one of the greatest players in the sport’s history (cricket is as much a national religion in Pakistan as soccer is in Argentina, for example), became Pakistan’s prime minister in 2018 after his party won parliamentary elections. created A movement for justice. He lost his position a year ago, as more than two dozen parliamentarians who previously supported Hahn defected to the opposite camp. Since then, protests by Khan’s supporters have continued in the country, demanding new parliamentary elections. Meanwhile, the authorities are launching investigations against the politician and his supporters, and one such investigation – into corruption schemes in the management of state property – led to his arrest. A kind of irony, since the fight against corruption was one of Khan’s main political slogans.

Given how dirty political struggles have been for decades in Pakistan, where rival assassinations are not uncommon (Khan was also wounded in an assassination attempt) and high-ranking politicians regularly go into exile or detention only to return to politics, these events should not attract excessive attention. attention However, in Hahn’s case there is a significant difference from similar cases. Previously, the relationship has been explained in this way within the framework of a system where, under the patronage of the generalship, there is a struggle between two political clans, which are currently symbolized by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. It can be said that this system is a legacy of the British colonial empire and all the elites involved in it are oriented towards Great Britain and the United States.

Khan, on the other hand, symbolizes the alternative – he represents the part of the elite and the population that believes that the country needs radical changes in both domestic and foreign policy. Among them, the refusal to follow a course dictated by foreign countries, a sovereign foreign policy and the normalization of relations with neighbors, first of all India. Although some of Hahn’s slogans are populist, support for his ideas is broad, but obvious cracks have appeared in the “old” system. Accordingly, even if the pro-Khan riots are quelled, the idea will remain, and further turmoil awaits Pakistan.