Against All Odds

Economic meltdown, inflation and public desperation notwithstanding, the coalition govt has a one-point agenda: ‘Contain Khan’

Pakistan’s economy is in a deep slump; terrorism is raging in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces. The government, however, has its eyes set somewhere else — ie. on ‘fixing’ former Prime Minister Imran Khan. We are witnessing an action replay of the late 1970s when the country’s political elite, backed by the powerful establishment, was arrayed against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) and finally hanged him. Although Imran Khan is fortunate to have narrowly escaped an attempt on his life, the establishment’s containment project is, nevertheless, in full swing. The political/constitutional crisis in the Punjab is one indicator of what extent anti-Imran Khan forces will go to attain their ends.

If one goes by several public opinion surveys conducted in recent weeks, PTI Chairman Imran Khan is much more popular than his opponents (by a wide margin of at least 20 points); and his party won more than 70 percent of the vacant seats in the national and provincial assemblies in the by-elections held after his ouster from the Prime Minister’s office. The PTI also secured more seats than the other main parties in the contest in the recent local government elections in Azad Kashmir, despite being a new entrant to the region. And so, fearing defeat, the ruling parties have now postponed local body elections in Karachi for the umpteenth time and are trying to elude municipal polls in the federal capital, Islamabad, scheduled to be held on December 31. Even so, while Khan may pose a formidable challenge, his opposition is focused, united to one end: the elimination of Imran Khan from the political arena.

The traditional centres of power are following the old, time-tested manual of political engineering. They are resorting to manipulation, wheeling-dealing and the use of government resources to keep Imran Khan out in the cold. All Khan’s opponents have been harnessed into one alliance. There was the nine-party Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) against Benazir Bhutto. Imran Khan’s nemesis is the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), which is, ironically, supported by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

Intimidation and character assassination have been the two main parts of the Khan containment project, apart from efforts to create divisions in his party. Signs are that Imran Khan may be disqualified from holding public office on one charge or another, at least for a short period of time, which gives his opponents enough time to get their act together. In two separate cases pending against him, Khan has been charged with not declaring his income from the sale of an expensive watch he bought from the state repository in his annual submission to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), and for not mentioning his alleged daughter in his official papers. Khan’s opponents hope the ECP may, in fact, declare him ineligible for holding the office of president of any political party on the ground that he was not truthful in declaring his income from the sale of the watch. The purpose is to demoralise PTI workers and supporters and slash his vote-bank as much as possible. Efforts are also underway to set up a new political party of political notables, especially in the southern districts of Punjab, where individuals matter more than political parties, mainly by causing defections from the PTI.

As not-so-invisible hands had supported the PNA and the IJI in the 1970s and 1980s, the same holds true for the PDM. The alliance has received a freeflow of secret recordings of conversations between Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, which have then been calculatedly leaked to the public in a bid to damage his credentials. Meanwhile, the higher judiciary seems unenthusiastic, in fact almost hesitant about being proactive in regard to ensuring the fundamental rights of the government’s critics, as it was in the recent past. In the 1970s, a media campaign was launched against ZAB charging that he used alcohol and had a mistress. Posters of his wife, Nusrat Bhutto, partying with US President Nixon were plastered on walls all over the country, sending a message to conservative sections of Pakistani society about the Bhuttos’ “immorality and un-Islamic” lifestyle. Airbrushed, manufactured nude photographs of Benazir Bhutto were distributed in the Punjab by helicopters; stories were published — there was only the print media in Pakistan at that time —  that she indulged in drugs (a leading Urdu-language magazine published stories alleging she smoked hashish), implying that she enjoyed a ‘playgirl’ lifestyle in her student days. And now, a similar campaign is underway against Imran Khan. Most recently, his alleged raunchy conversations with women about sex have been circulated, and more may be in the offing.

So far, all the anti-Imran machinations have yielded few tangible results. One reason for that is the fact that the ruling coalition has little to show in economic terms. Eight months into office, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has done little to provide any relief to the common man. The economy is in ruins. Inflation is hitting the roof. The price of staple food, ie. wheat flour has doubled in the last eight months, and the prices of perishable food items have skyrocketed by at least 70 per cent. Factories have shut down in large numbers. Large-scale manufacturing has gone into a slump, posting a negative 2.9 percent growth rate from July to October this year. The textile sector, the country’s major export sector, has contracted by 25 percent in the last one year, and more than two million textile mills workers have been rendered jobless.

The cumulative losses of state-owned companies such as PIA, the Pakistan Railways, PSO, etc. have shot up to Rs 3.5 trillion. This month, the government has not even been able to pay railway employees’ salaries  on time. The national kitty has no foreign exchange; the country has technically defaulted with banks refusing to open of letters of credit for any kind of imports. There is a shortage of essential medicines such as insulin, as pharmaceutical manufacturers are unable to import raw material due to the want of foreign exchange. To make matters worse, remittances from expatriate Pakistanis have slumped by nearly 10 per cent this fiscal year, as compared to the previous year.

Yet, even with the huge economic slump and the unprecedented surge in inflation, Imran Khan’s opponents fear going to the masses for a fresh mandate. Efforts are underway to postpone the elections till some unforeseeable ‘miracle’ happens, and the tide turns in their favour. Following the visit of the Centcom chief, the ruling elite hopes that soon the United States will come to their rescue and prod the IMF to release a fresh dose of steroids to Pakistan’s breathless economy. In the United States, our elite trust and seek redemption. The IMF has asked the Shehbaz Sharif government to collect more than Rs 800 billion in additional taxes to reduce the yawning gap between the government’s income and expenditure. The government is in a fix. If it imposes new taxes, this will further erode its standing among the public; if it does not comply with the IMF conditions, the agency may take Pakistan off the ventilator, leading to substantive default with disastrous consequences.

Currently, the government does not have the funds to pay the salaries of many departments, but it has doled out two billion rupees in media advertisements to keep the country’s major mainstream media houses on its side. Social media is, however, the fly in the government’s ointment, because it is dominated by Imran Khan’s supporters. The government is using the FIA and the draconian law of the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act to suppress dissent and critics in the social media. A few journalists have fled the country. Some have been silenced, while others are braving threats, harassment and intimidation. Senator Azam Swati’s incarceration is just one incident which typifies the overall intimidation critics of the powers-that-be are facing these days.

In all likelihood, although he has unarguably kept the Shehbaz Sharif government on tenterhooks, indications are that Imran Khan will not succeed in forcing the government to hold early general elections. In the procedural run of things, these are scheduled to be held in late November, at the completion of the five-year tenure of the assemblies. Whether now, or then, the ruling parties backed by the power centres are determined to ensure Imran Khan does not return to power at any time. In 1979, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was eliminated through judicial murder. In 1990 and 1996, Benazir Bhutto was kept out of power through massively rigged general elections and finally, she was shot to death in a terrorist attack in Rawalpindi in 2007.

Imran Khan narrowly escaped an attempt on his life in Wazirabad on November 3, and may well face another attack. He is clearly not in a good place at present, but his supporters fear worse may yet come. In the interplay of power politics, what goes in his favour is the fact that he has unwavering support among the public. In the past, the traditional elite went their way overriding public opinion. Will they be able to do so this time around as well, and attain much-needed political stability by excluding the most popular leader from the political arena? That remains moot.