Khan picking up defectors as national elections approach
Former cricket star Imran Khan is wooing Pakistan’s turncoat politicians, reports Ismail Dilawar , of Bloomberg News.
PAKISTAN’S politicians are defecting in increasing numbers to the party of opposition leader and former cricket star Imran Khan, a shift that shows his rising influence and that has prompted allegations he enjoys the support of the country’s powerful military.
The intensified jockeying comes ahead of a national election on July 25. So far this year 248 politicians, including dozens of federal and provincial lawmakers, have changed sides — the most on record, according to the Free and Fair Election Network, an Islamabadbased watchdog.
Of those, 92 politicians have joined Khan’s Pakistan TehreekeInsaf, the secondlargest opposition party and main rival of the Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz (PMLN), headed by former premier Nawaz Sharif.
Khan, whose anticorruption campaign prompted the Supreme Court last year to disqualify and press criminal charges against Sharif, knows he needs to win over a large number of turncoat politicians. The key province is Punjab, which is Sharif’s bastion.
‘‘You need to have a critical mass of these defections, or several bigname defections, to have a real impact on the election,’’ Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, said.
If Khan is elected, he will face a United States that remains distrustful of Pakistan’s efforts to stamp out terrorism and continues to withhold billions of dollars in military aid. For Washington, a Khan victory would be an uneasy prospect.
The 65yearold is a staunch critic of the war in Afghanistan and US drone strikes in Pakistan. He has also courted rightwing religious leaders, some with past links to the Afghan Taliban.
To investors, Khan represents an untested force in a country dominated by the dynasties of two parties — Sharif’s PMLN and the Pakistan Peoples Party headed by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of the assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
‘‘Investors were concerned over Khan’s earlier statements about his plans to clamp down on corruption and withdraw all the agreements made so far,’’ Muzzammil Aslam, the chief executive officer at brokerage firm EFG Hermes Pakistan Ltd, said.
‘‘But Khan’s 100day plan eased off the investors’ concerns as it didn’t attack businesses,’’ he said.
In an interview with
Bloomberg last year, Khan mocked the ‘‘musical chairs’’ politicians who chase power and money, but conceded he needed their numbers. Yet his success in drawing turncoats has fuelled longstanding allegations from rival politicians and commentators that he is a pawn in the army’s attempts to engineer a compliant government through media censorship and intimidation.
‘‘The army, which has sparred with the PMLN for several years, has a strong interest in the next government not being led by the PMLN,’’ Kugelman said.
Sharif has repeatedly insinuated he is a victim of a military plot as he faces a criminal trial after the Panama Paper leaks in 2016 showed his family used offshore companies to buy highend London apartments.
And while Khan has denied he has support from the military, which has ruled the nation for much of its 71 years, he has praised the army for its handling of domestic security.
The military has continually denied the allegations. A spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. But two weeks ago, Pakistan’s military spokesman Majorgeneral Asif Ghafoor told reporters the armed forces were not involved in domestic politics and refuted claims of media censorship.
Asad Umer, a senior politician in Khan’s party who is pegged to become finance minister if they come to power, said the PMLN was fuelling a conspiracy for political gain.
‘‘That is the very sensible narrative from their point of view when you foresee a defeat coming,’’ he said.
One defector to Khan’s party lambasted Sharif’s comments as an attempt to weave a conspiracy that papers over the PMLN’s faults.
Omar Ayub Khan, the grandson of former military dictator Ayub Khan and no relation of the former cricketer, denies he was pressured by the forces to leave Sharif’s group. He said PMLN members were switching sides because of the party’s botched attempt to change an Islamic oath that lawmakers took, which resulted in a threeweek protest that snarled up the capital in November.
Up to March, Gallup Pakistan voting intentions data shows Khan’s party had increased its lead by 3% to 24% since 2017, which is still second place to the PMLN’s 36% — a 2% decline over the same period.
For Pakistan’s most recent prime minister, Shahid
Khaqan Abbasi — a Sharif loyalist who handed over to a caretaker administration last month, defections are just a wellestablished part of the nation’s politics that will not damage his party’s chances.
‘‘Pakistani politics is about turncoats. We have seen all this before,’’ Abbasi said.
While defections and other pressures had left Sharif’s party ‘‘incredibly vulnerable’’, its hold on Punjab and its shepherding of billions of dollars of Chinesefunded infrastructure projects meant it was still in the game, Kugelman said.
‘‘No matter what’s being thrown at it, the PMLN still stands a fair chance of reelection.’’
Khan’s PTI ‘‘remains a oneissue party fixated on corruption — an issue that many Pakistanis don’t view as a top concern’’, he said. — TNS
Pakistani politics is about turncoats. We have seen all this before.