Protests continue in Pakistan following the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Due to the scale of the unrest, the country’s leaders have restricted internet access and sent troops to parts of the state. Former Prime Minister Khan, who left office after a no-confidence vote in parliament, is popular with a significant section of citizens as a politician independent of elite clans who can defeat corruption. Russian media explains what caused the unrest and what it means for Russia’s relationship with the South Asian country.
The scale of the protests
May 10 Justice Movement Party (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, hereinafter referred to as PTI) urged supporters to take to the streets in response to the arrest of the party’s founder and chairman, Imran Khan, who served as Pakistan’s prime minister from 2018 to 2022.
The appeal by the PTI party follows the appeal made to Pakistanis by former Prime Minister Imran Khan himself. “When my words reach you, I will already be in custody on a fabricated case. After that, you all must realize that the concepts of fundamental rights, rule of law and democracy no longer exist in Pakistan,” Khan, 70, said on May 9 after his arrest.
The protests originated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, the smallest of Pakistan’s northwest provinces, where most of the former prime minister’s supporters live. The protesters decided to march on the Pakistani capital Islamabad and secure Khan’s release. Initially, the protests were supposed to be peaceful, according to statements by PTI representatives. “We keep calling <…> supporters and people of Pakistan (to take to the streets) to peacefully protest against this unconstitutional behavior,” PTI Vice President Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on his social media. Besides Khan, PTI Secretary General Asad Umar, was also arrested, the party said.
Despite the initially peaceful nature of the protests, photos of burnt-out cars, tires and destroyed stores diverge online. Protesters and those fighting against them block roads across the country, there are clashes with police. Supporters of the former prime minister took to the streets in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Peshevar. Police applied water cannons and tear gas.
KM Chaudary / AP
The government is restricting internet access to prevent protesters from interacting. In the country stopped working Twitter, Facebook*, Youtube and other social networks. “Additionally, some regions have experienced complete internet shutdowns,” NetBlocks, an international internet monitoring service, reported on May 9. Malahat Obeid, spokesperson for the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority declared Al Jazeera that the regulator has been instructed to suspend access to Twitter, YouTube and Facebook* from the Home Office.
Help from the army was needed to put down the protests. At the request of the regional authorities, the troops were deployed to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the northeastern province of Punjab. Pakistan’s military said May 9 – the day protests erupted after Khan’s arrest – will be “remembered as a dark chapter” in the country’s history. The statement said the protests were “organized attacks” on military installations. On the evening of May 10, the Pakistani government approved the deployment of the army in the country’s capital, Islamabad.
What caused the riots
Demonstrations followed the arrest of Imran Khan on May 9. A warrant for his arrest has been issued by the National Accountability Bureau, an anti-corruption body, in a case of embezzlement from the Al-Qadeer Trust. The fund sells gifts from foreign leaders, Khan is accused of embezzling around $127,000.
Imran Khan denies the charges and considers them to be politically fabricated.
Shortly before his arrest, the former prime minister accused the army and the Interdepartmental Intelligence (the country’s main intelligence agency) of having tried to organize several attacks on his life. Imran Khan was arrested in the fourth attempt when he arrived at the Supreme Court building in Islamabad to testify – the decision on his arrest was made by the capital’s District Court on February 28. According to a statement by the politician’s representative Rauf Hasan, Khan was detained until the hearing.
KM Chaudary / AP
Imran Khan, 70, was born in Pakistan but received his secondary and higher education in the UK, first at a private school in Worcester and then at Oxford University. Khan has played cricket since childhood and from 1982 to 1992 he captained the Pakistan national team in the sport.
In 1996 Khan founded PTI and became one of the country’s most popular politicians. From 2002 to 2007 he was a member of the parliamentary opposition, in 2008 his party boycotted the legislative elections. In the 2013 vote, the PTI finished second in the elections, and in 2018 the PTI formed a coalition with independent candidates and was able to win a majority in parliament.
Imran Khan adhered to Islamic values, while advocating the introduction of liberal measures in the economy. He spoke out in favor of reducing the bureaucracy of the state apparatus, the fight against corruption, the creation of an independent judiciary and purges in the police. During his tenure as Prime Minister, he was able to get help from the IMF to solve the problem of the balance of payments crisis. To reduce the budget deficit, Khan’s government reduced the current account deficit and limited defense spending. Despite the attractiveness of investment in the country and the reforms of the social protection system, the authorities were nevertheless unable to overcome the economic crisis and rising inflation in Pakistan.
In foreign policy, Hal developed cooperation with China and Russia, maintaining cold relations with India and reducing interaction with the United States, which he criticized for fighting the Taliban **.
In 2022, opposition parties cast a vote of no confidence in Khan. In October 2022, he was withdrawn from the elections and disqualified from holding government positions for five years. Khan accused in his expulsion from the United States, because he believed he pursued an independent foreign policy and maintained friendly relations with Russia and China. Subsequently, Khan toned down his rhetoric, saying that “I would like to have good relations with all countries, especially with the United States”.
The former prime minister is implicated in a case of selling gifts from foreign leaders. In March 2023, the police put forward accuses him of terrorism.
Imran Khan was able to maintain his popularity even after leaving power. Gleb Makarevich, Junior Researcher, Center for the Indian Ocean Region, IMEMO RAS connect This is for two reasons. First, Khan convinced his voters of the need to update the country’s political system. According to the former prime minister, the armed forces have a strong influence on politics – under their patronage, power in the country passes from one corrupt political clan to another, the politician is convinced of this.
Secondly, the failures of the current authorities also play a role – over the past year the coalition government led by the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) has not been able to eliminate the threat of default and overcome the depreciation of the Pakistani rupee. Among other things, the government fails to resolve the energy crisis and to decide on foreign policy – there has been no progress in the disputes with India and Afghanistan, and a balance has not been found in relations with the West and China, the expert believes.
In this context, Imran Khan returns to populist slogans and accuses the current authorities of having taken their positions thanks to foreign aid. former prime minister calls their followers to fight for freedom with “a corrupt cabal of crooks imposed on us from outside”.
At the same time, Imran Khan himself was initially a creature of the Pakistani army, Gleb Makarevich said in an interview with Russian media. He was a non-systemic politician, not involved in corruption scandals and not associated with any of the political clans of Pakistan. This allowed the military to present Imran Khan as a new political figure capable of fighting corruption, the expert said.
Farid Khan/AP
In 2021, Imran Khan began to fall out of favor – the army and Khan did not reach a consensus on how to interact with the Taliban **, which came to power in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of American troops, says Makarevich . The next conflict was caused by Imran Khan’s displeasure that the army imposed his protege on him for the post of head of Inter-Services Intelligence. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the criticism with which Western countries fell on Pakistan after February 24, 2022 – from February 23 to 24, Imran Khan was visiting Russia. This made Khan too toxic in the eyes of the West, which did not sit well with the military, the expert explained.
What the protests mean for Russia
Do not expect cardinal changes in the internal political system of Pakistan because of the protests, believes Gleb Makarevich. “Most likely the protests will be suppressed and Imran Khan will be in jail for some time. Maybe he will be released or given the option to leave, but the case will be suspended for him anyway,” the expert said.
In the fall of 2022, it became clear that the Pakistani army had chosen its candidates for the next national elections – the procedure for the appointment of a new chief of staff of the land forces had passed, which requires coordination and a consensus between the government and the army. Since this position was approved, it means that “the army and the government are united, they look at the political process in the same way”, explained Makarevich. At the same time, it is possible that the army will again quarrel with the current government, then that Imran Khan, being the only candidate known to the population, will again become Prime Minister, believes the orientalist.
Despite Imran Khan’s warm attitude towards Moscow, the protests do not have a cardinal impact on Russian-Pakistani relations, Makarevich is convinced of this. This is due to the general nature of relations between Moscow and Islamabad – cooperation is situational and the two countries do not have a comprehensive view of how to build long-term relations, the analyst explained. “Today we are cooperating on Afghanistan, holding meetings in Moscow with the Taliban** and generally supporting the Pakistani position that Afghanistan should be run by a government of Afghans themselves and foreign interventions should stop But a year and a half has passed since the withdrawal of American troops, and we no longer see any development of interaction on this issue, because the Pakistanis themselves do not know what to do with Afghanistan, just like us we don’t know,” Makarevich said. Most events in Russia and Pakistan are situational in nature, although relations are developing very dynamically due to the low base effect, he said. concluded.
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** The Taliban movement is recognized as terrorist and banned in Russia
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