Khan denies capital shutdown will lead to coup
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan on Sunday dismissed accusations his planned shutdown of the nation’s capital could lead to a military coup, saying Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif “can’t hide behind ‘democracy in danger’” to quash protests.
Khan, a former national cricket hero, has vowed to bring a million people into Islamabad tomorrow to paralyse the government and force Sharif either to resign or allow an inquiry into the “Panama Papers” revelations about his family’s offshore wealth.
Sharif ’s ruling PML-N party has accused Khan’s Pakistan Tehreeke-Insaf (PTI) party of endangering democracy by attempting to draw Pakistan’s powerful military into a political dispute – a sensitive issue in a nation where the army has a history of staging coups.
Khan said the police had him under virtual house arrest after the city banned public gatherings in the run-up to tomorrow’s planned protest and arrested scores of PTI workers.
He dismissed claims he wanted the army to topple Sharif, as it did when Sharif was in power in the 1990s, and said the protests aimed to hold him to account for alleged corruption. “How can a democrat want the military to come in?,” Khan said. “He has to answer. He can’t hide behind ‘democracy in danger’.”
Pakistan’s military has repeatedly refused to comment on the planned protests.
Relations between the PML-N and the military soured after a newspaper report about a top-level national security meeting angered the army, prompting the removal of one of Sharif’s cabinet ministers blamed for the leak.
The tense relations, as well as the rows between Sharif and Khan, have stirred unease and prompted newspaper editorial warnings that a descent into street chaos could trigger military intervention.
One of Sharif ’s closest allies, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, wrote in a Sunday newspaper that Khan was “willing to derail democracy for personal gains”.