The downfall of Imran Khan
He has no one to blame but himself as he didn’t deliver the naya Pakistan he promised
In the end, Imran Khan didn’t even deliver on his repeated promise to play till the last ball in the constitutional crisis of his own creation. The cricketer-turned-politician wasn’t in Parliament on Sunday when Opposition lawmakers unseated him as the premier in the first successful no-trust vote in Pakistan’s history. This was preceded by bizarre efforts by Mr Khan to desperately cling to power, with the parliamentary speaker putting off the vote on one pretext or the other and a reported attempt to remove the Pakistan army chief, as uncertainty in political circles sowed the seeds for chaos of the sort Pakistan can do well without at this juncture. Mr Khan’s behaviour has been anything but sportsmanlike since the combined Opposition brought the no-confidence motion against him a week ago. First, he colluded with the deputy speaker, also from his party, to get the trust vote rejected, and then he got the President, another party acolyte, to dissolve Parliament and order fresh elections. It was then that the Supreme Court stepped in and ordered the holding of the vote and set Pakistan back on the constitutional track.
Mr Khan came to power with lofty promises of building a “naya Pakistan” that many of his followers had bought into. A charismatic leader who continues to draw huge crowds and to rally the youth, Mr Khan’s performance in delivering on those promises was dismal. His government did little to increase Pakistan’s manufacturing capabilities or to push sustainable development and address a serious balance of payments crisis. Instead, there was the same old culture of turning to China and Saudi Arabia for handouts. More worryingly, Mr Khan used an anti-graft campaign to go after political opponents and stifled the media while his Pakistan Tehreek-e-insaf party injected hate and toxicity into Pakistan’s body politic that will linger for a long time.
There is no one Mr Khan can blame for his fall but himself. The new government to be formed by the combined Opposition will certainly have its work cut out for it. It was one thing for Opposition parties to come together to oust Mr Khan, but it will quite another for them to remain united to address challenges ranging from a resurgent Pakistani Taliban to an economy on life support. Indian policymakers will certainly be wishing for the success of this experiment to ensure muchneeded stability on the western front.