Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has been working on a political comeback ever since he was kicked out of office with a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in April 2022, notched a victory on Monday by securing a snap election in Punjab, whose population of 110 million makes it the largest of Pakistan’s provinces.
Khan has been trying to force early elections since the day he was ousted. In fact, he was calling for snap elections before the April no-confidence vote, which he claimed was a plot by the United States and other foreign powers to overthrow his government. Having narrowly survived an earlier no-confidence motion, Khan was betting that early elections would favor his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and its allies while knocking off enough opposition lawmakers to protect him from the no-confidence effort.
Not a single Pakistani prime minister has ever made it to the end of his elected term in office, and Khan’s bid to hotwire the National Assembly to avoid the traditional bum’s rush did not succeed.
PTI set the stage for another shot at snap polls by resigning en masse from the National Assembly soon after his eviction. The National Assembly refused to accept their resignations, but Khan insisted the legislature faced a crisis of legitimacy it could only resolve by holding immediate national elections.
Khan undertook both a literal and metaphorical “long march” back to power, rolling slowly across the country from Lahore to the capital of Islamabad, holding energetic rallies where he denounced his political opponents as “thieves.”
Khan himself faces allegations of corruption, which led the Election Commission of Pakistan to bar him from running for public office for five years in October. He was also accused of making terrorist threats against his opponents.
PTI representatives managed to force a few emergency elections during Khan’s long march – and the party invariably listed Khan himself as its candidate in every single race, nominally allowing him to rack up numerous seats, although Pakistani law would eventually require him to choose only one seat to occupy. He was up to seven seats when a would-be assassin shot him in the leg in early November.
Punjab represents a pivotal battle in Khan’s comeback campaign since almost half of the national population lives within its borders. The province is a PTI stronghold. Its capital, Lahore, is Pakistan’s second-largest city and was the launch pad for Khan’s long march to Islamabad.
Reuters on Monday suspected sitting Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will find it difficult to continue resisting Khan’s demands for early national elections if PTI cleans up in the Punjab provincial assembly, and PTI’s other provincial stronghold could go for snap elections right behind Punjab:
Punjab government spokesman Mussarat Cheema told Reuters the process to choose a caretaker government to oversee the polls had started. “We want this process to be completed as soon as possible so that we head toward elections,” he said.
According to the constitution, the local assembly was automatically disbanded 48 hours after Punjab’s chief minister called for it to be dissolved late on Thursday. The constitution also stipulates that elections must be held within 90 days.
Mahmood Khan, the chief minister of the other PTI-coalition ruled province, the northeastern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said he would call on Tuesday for the local assembly to be dissolved.
Khan said on Monday that he and his party would consider any national legislature that does not include a seat for Imran Khan to be illegitimate.
“If we don’t return to the National Assembly then the PML-N-led coalition government will form the caretaker setup in consultation with handpicked opposition leader Raja Riaz. We don’t let this happen,” he told a press conference.
PML-N is the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz, founded by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s older brother, Nawaz. It is the current governing party of Pakistan.
Raja Riaz Ahmed is a dissident PTI leader who strongly dislikes Khan, the party chairman. Ahmed has denounced Khan as a “turncoat, corrupt and fraudster” who seeks to spread anarchy by sabotaging the Pakistani government until his political ambitions are satisfied. Ahmed said in August he would resign if Khan merely attends important National Assembly meetings, never mind taking a seat in the legislature.
As indicated in his press conference, Khan views Ahmed as a fraudulent PTI leader installed by the ruling coalition. He made it clear that his goal is to use Punjab to force national snap elections to undermine Sharif, and perhaps even force him out of office with a no-confidence vote, just as Khan was unseated last year.
“We are going to test Shehbaz Sharif. He is going to have sleepless nights as we are in contact with PML-N MNAs. He will struggle to prove majority in the house,” Khan taunted.
Speaking through senior PTI officials, in December, Khan explicitly threatened that he would use his party’s clout to forcibly dissolve the assemblies of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa if Sharif did not meet his demand to announce snap elections for the national legislature by December 20. Sharif did not comply with this demand.
“They’re delaying elections just because they are fearful of defeat. We’ll win whenever they’re held,” Khan boasted when making this threat.
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