Pakistan’s Imran Khan to ‘face wrath of the state’ in military court trial over protests
- The former PM once had Pakistan’s all-powerful military on his side, but all that has changed following a series of mob attacks linked to his party
- Even his hopes of a sympathetic judiciary have been dashed, as the ruling coalition goes after Pakistan’s chief justice for his alleged pro-Khan bias
Hopes that sympathetic judges of the Supreme Court could protect Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), were dashed as the country’s coalition government announced that parliament would seek Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial’s removal from the top court for misconduct on the grounds of his alleged pro-Khan bias.
“Khan and his party are now realising what happens when you cross the red line with Pakistan’s all-powerful military establishment,” said Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States and Sri Lanka.
Being on “the right side of the military” until last year meant that Khan, and his advisers and followers, had “never faced the wrath of the state” that for decades had been directed at Pakistan’s traditional political parties and civil society activists, Haqqani said.
“It remains to be seen how they will fare once they face the repression others faced while Khan and his supporters cheered on,” said Haqqani, who is currently a diplomat-in-residence at the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi and a senior fellow at Washington-based think tank the Hudson Institute.
Bandial has repeatedly warned the government of “serious consequences” for resisting his orders, sparking speculation that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif could be sacked by the Supreme Court and disqualified from holding public office – like his brother Nawaz Sharif was in July 2017.
In speeches televised live, political party leaders warned the chief justice against trying to unseat Sharif for failing to comply with orders to conduct elections in Punjab by the court’s May 14 deadline.
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“If any attempt is made against the government, we will defend the National Assembly and the prime minister,” said cleric-politician Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the ruling Pakistan Democratic Movement.
“In this case, you [Bandial] will be in trouble and will not be able to save yourself,” he warned.
Analysts say legal hurdles are often used to discourage dissent in Pakistan and Khan has dismissed the cases arrayed against him as politically motivated.
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Political analyst Mosharraf Zaidi said judges were split down the middle over the political crisis.
“The judiciary still makes compromises with both civilians and the military, but on many issues judges have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to take a stand and hold their ground,” he told AFP.
Ex-ambassador Haqqani also warned that “Pakistan’s polarisation will continue to deepen, not ease, with the new announcements” by the army leadership and the coalition government.
“Imran Khan and his cultlike followers” will try to push back using “their support in the higher judiciary, social media, and the street”, he said.
The government will use the power of the state machinery, and its own street protests, “backed as of now by the army higher command”, to counteract the PTI, Haqqani said. “The situation will be far from stable.”
Soiled relations
The parties in Pakistan’s coalition government have long held that the former cricket star’s meteoric rise since 2012, following two decades as a marginal political figure, was the result of a massive conspiracy involving the military and the judiciary.
Their alliance was ultimately broken when Khan tried to block the transfer of the general in charge of the powerful Inter Services Intelligence agency, a move viewed by the army leadership as undermining its authority.
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The loss of the military’s political support opened the way for previously sidelined major political parties to remove Khan as prime minister in a vote of no confidence in April 2022.
They formed a coalition government and resisted calls to hold a snap election they were favoured to win at the time so as to prevent Khan from retaking power with the help of remaining supporters in the military and judiciary.
Ties between Khan and the army’s leadership subsequently deteriorated into outright hostility as the PTI leader unsuccessfully attempted time and again to pressure the generals into forcing the government to call a snap general election.
Khan’s rhetoric triggered his dramatic arrest from the Islamabad High Court premises by scores of paramilitary soldiers on May 9, apparently without the prior knowledge of the government or the anti-corruption agency investigating the charges against the former prime minister.
In the days that followed, mobs of vengeful activists armed with sticks, slings, petrol bombs and even guns, filmed being led by former PTI ministers and MPs, attacked military, paramilitary and intelligence bases, checkpoints and memorials in many parts of the country.
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But Khan has refused to take responsibility for the attacks, which followed the airing of a pre-recorded video calling for PTI activists to “take to the streets”.
Instead, he has claimed that the violence was perpetrated by intelligence operatives so as to entrap him and his party colleagues.
Without naming Khan or members of his PTI party, the army’s high command on Monday said it would prosecute the people who attacked military facilities last week under security laws that allow for civilians to be tried in military and anti-terrorist courts.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
