Pakistan is in turmoil after the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan earlier this week, and though he’s since been released, the country’s future remains deeply uncertain.
After Khan was arrested by paramilitary officers on Tuesday on charges of corruption for allegedly receiving a bribe in the form of land, mass protests broke out across the country (sometimes violently). Internet service was reportedly suspended in many regions, and at least 2,800 people were arrested and eight have died.
This political crisis is, in one sense, a year in the making after Khan was forced out of the prime ministership in April 2022. But it’s also a reckoning for the country’s democracy, and an indictment of Pakistan’s military, which has played an outsized role in the country’s politics — when it’s not actively running the government.
Though Khan is out of jail, that doesn’t mean the unrest has died down. The military has been deployed in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as well as the capital, Islamabad, since Wednesday to try and calm the protests. Interim Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, himself the subject of corruption charges, said Saturday that protesters who engaged in violence would be charged in anti-terrorism courts.
Khan was already a legend in Pakistan before entering politics, but the uproar over his arrest is about much more than his days as his country’s top cricketer. Rather, Khan’s populist rhetoric and open conflict with the military have struck a chord with younger Pakistanis in particular — a constituency he’s long been courting. And with record inflation, ethnic and jihadi violence, and serious class inequality defining life for many Pakistanis, it’s no surprise that Khan’s claims of political purity and his purported willingness to stand up to the military are inspiring unprecedented displays of loyalty.
“Although public consciousness about the military’s political role precedes the rise of Imran Khan, supporters…
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