Pakistan’s Cricket-Star-Turned-Prime Minister Fights for Survival

Islamabad, Pakistan-Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan is his political politician after opposition parties are moving for distrust in parliament and the country’s powerful troops withdraw support for his government. I’m fighting for survival.

Former cricket star politician Khan has announced plans to gather a million supporters in Islamabad, urging the Supreme Court to disqualify a member of the Diet who has been exiled from his party. A plot blaming his critics as part of the influence.

But as demands for his resignation grow, critics and analysts say he lost a majority in Congress, and these measures are unlikely to change that.

Arif Rafiq, president of Vizier Consulting, a political risk advisory firm in New York, said: “And he’s a fighter, but it just doesn’t look like he has the numbers to survive the distrust resolution.”

Pakistan, the second largest Islamic country in the world, has been reluctant to be an important American partner in its campaign against terrorism. A nuclear-armed nation that supports the Tullivan administration in neighboring Afghanistan, it has embraced a strategic partnership with China and close ties with Russia, and is further drifting from the United States under Mr. Khan.

However, the political threat to Mr. Khan is primarily domestic. Pakistan is plagued by double-digit inflation, causing widespread dissatisfaction and fueling criticism of mismanagement of the economy.

In addition, he lost military support. This is believed to be due to his efforts to deploy Lieutenant General Faizhamid, a loyal military aide and former spy chief over the opposition of Top Brass.

And as the opposition exploited these weaknesses, Mr. Khan’s scorched earth operation left him almost negotiable with a few friends. He once or imprisoned most of the other major opposition leaders. They are currently on bail, but Mr. Khan threatened to detain them again.

The accusations are likely to be voted in parliament soon next week, as it will extend Pakistan’s record that it will never allow the prime minister to complete his five-year term next week. However, Mr. Khan’s aggressive tactics and the prospect of competition for a mass rally in Islamabad this weekend have also raised fears of violence that could overturn the democratic process.

Three major coalition parties that are part of the coalition government have shown that they can support the opposition in a parliamentary vote. That would be enough to defeat Mr. Khan’s government.

Opposition leaders also claim to have the support of dozens of dissidents within Mr Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-Eye Movement. Last week, his party was shaken by the asylum of at least a dozen lawmakers who accused their leaders of not combating inflation.

“The ruling coalition has virtually lost a majority,” Senator Mustafa Nowers Kohar, a member of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party, said in an interview. “The military also seems indifferent to saving Imran Khan. The baggage of financial mismanagement is too much to carry.”

Elected in 2018, Kahn ran as a nationalist promising to fight corruption, getting the country’s anemic economy back on track and maintaining an independent anti-American foreign policy. But except at the end, he had a hard time fulfilling those promises.

Pakistan’s economic problems are not entirely his fault. Inflation caused by pandemic-related supply chain troubles is as global a problem as rising energy costs. He blamed the previous administration for inherited high external debt.

And loyal to his strong and self-justice style, he ridiculed critics who said he wasn’t.

“I’m not here to check the prices of tomatoes and potatoes, I’m here to grow the country,” he said at a rally in Hafizabad this month. He accuses the opposition of being “bought for looted money” and calls the three major opposition “The Three Stooges” or “The Three Stooges” to please his supporters. ..

However, he was plagued by economic policy and changed his economic team several times during the first few years of his inauguration. He was able to negotiate a $ 6 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund last year, but he admitted that it was a mistake not to do so three years ago.

The first $ 1 billion agreed in November for the IMF loan came at the expense of painful economic reforms that have soared fuel and electricity prices. And the fact that the Governor of the State Bank is a former IMF employee fuels criticism that the IMF currently operates the country.

“The government can’t hide behind Covid-19’s excuses for price increases and inflation that have hit people from all levels,” Congressman Khurram Dastgir Khan said in an interview. “Inflation exceeded 10% in August 2019. Since then, we have not tolerated double-digit inflation.”

Critics also accused Mr. Khan of carrying out political revenge, and members of his inner circle were accused of corruption.

And if Mr. Khan can promote General Hamid, who was seen by the opposition as Khan’s political executor, as a new Army staff member, opposition leaders fear further arrests and crackdowns. They accuse General Hamid of manipulating the 2018 general election in favor of Mr. Khan, and fear that he could operate it again in the next election as an Army staff member.

Mr. Khan and military officials have denied that the military played any role in the elections, but it is widely believed that Mr. Khan’s initial support by the military was the main reason for his rise in power. There is.

The current Army staff term ends in November, and opposition leaders fear that Mr Khan intends to replace him with General Hamid.

According to analysts, this is a bridge that is too far away for the military, and the cracks may be the most significant factor in the current political crisis. The military was accustomed to calling its own shots and never accepted civilian leaders who interfered with its internal problems.

The disconnect between Mr. Khan and the army first surfaced last year after Mr. Khan resisted regular military transfers and insisted that General Hamid continue as the chief of the spy. Mr. Khan lost the battle and General Hamid was sent to the post in Peshawar.

Generals have also expressed dissatisfaction with Mr. Khan’s chambolic style of governance and economic treatment, according to politicians close to the military.

“For more than three years, Khan’s coalition government was supported by the military,” Raffic said. “Now the troops have retreated. Maybe some major political concessions to them may buy him another few months.”

Khan, who used anti-American rhetoric for political gain, attacked critics by saying they were favored by foreign forces, the United States. At a political rally in SWAT last week, he urged the crowd to support him against “American slaves.”

Mr. Khan has met with Russian President Vladimir Putin several times, but relations between Pakistan and the United States have cooled, and Mr. Khan has not yet spoken to President Biden.

In a recent speech, he emphasized resistance to US foreign policy, which was based in Pakistan as a base for counter-terrorism operations, and his supporters said that the current heightened opposition was that the United States made Pakistan’s base in Afghanistan. Last June, Mr. Khan was in Pakistan …