Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is a candidate for seven of eight National Assembly seats up for grabs in a key by-election on Sunday, a vote he describes as “a referendum” on his popularity.
The by-election is the latest twist in the political infighting that began after Khan was ousted by a parliamentary no-confidence vote on April 10.
It comes as the nation grapples with the aftermath of devastating monsoon floods, which have affected more than 30 million people and left a third of the country under water.
In Pakistan’s elections, candidates can run for multiple seats. If they win more than one, they decide which one they want to keep and a separate vote must be taken later for those forfeited.
However, it is rare for a candidate to run for as many seats as Khan did on Sunday and his disruptive move is clearly a measure of his popularity.
“This isn’t just an easy election, it’s a referendum,” he said late Friday at a rally in Karachi, the bustling southern port city of the nation of 220 million.
Khan has held dozens of rallies since his expulsion — drawing crowds by the tens of thousands — and has vowed to soon announce the date of a “long march” by his supporters to the capital, Islamabad.
He is demanding that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s coalition government call immediate elections instead of waiting until October next year.
“If he wins the most seats, he will put more pressure on the government,” political scientist Hassan Askari Rizvi told AFP.
“But the government will reject the call for elections on the grounds that it does not correspond to the national will.”
Khan has already racked up a string of by-election victories recently when his Pakistani party Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) took control of the state assembly in Punjab, the country’s most populous province, in July.
– escaped unscathed –
He has also survived a series of legal proceedings against him and his party largely unscathed.
Pakistan’s courts are often used to embroil lawmakers in tedious and lengthy processes that human rights monitors have criticized for stifling political opposition.
Khan blames the current government for rising inflation, although most analysts agree that Sharif has inherited the country’s economic woes.
Disastrous floods this summer submerged a third of Pakistan, displacing eight million people and causing at least $28 billion in damage.
The United Nations has warned of a “second wave” of the disaster, with the risk that deaths from waterborne diseases and malnutrition will surpass the 1,700 drowned and electrocuted in the first cascade.
Khan rode to power in 2018 on a populist platform that promised social reform, religious conservatism and the fight against corruption, toppling decades of rule by two feuding political dynasties riddled with military takeovers.
But under his tenure, the economy stagnated and he lost support from the army, which has been accused of helping to get him elected.
Sunday’s elections will be held in eight constituencies in three provinces – three each in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where Khan’s party rules, and two in Sindh.
“Indeed, this is a litmus test of his popularity, provided the elections are held in a free and fair atmosphere and are not rigged,” said Imtiaz Gul of the Center for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad.
“If he wins the majority of the seats, it will be yet another testament to the success of the narrative he has been building since leaving power, and that will obviously put more pressure on the government.”
