ISLAMABAD: As the country approaches crucial general elections next month, former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan has lamented the lack of conditions for his party, saying the establishment is not ready for it. provide one.
He added that surveys conducted under such circumstances would be a “farce”.
The former prime minister’s statement was made in an article written for the British publication The Economist, which he wrote amid his incarceration in Adiala prison.
“The way my party and I have been targeted since the farcical no-confidence vote in April 2022 has made one thing clear: the establishment — the military, security agencies and the civil bureaucracy — is not ready to give any level playing field, let alone level one, to the PTI. “
The former prime minister claims the establishment “engineered” the removal of his government “under pressure from America”, saying it was because the US “was upset by my push for an independent foreign policy and my refusal to provide a base for its armed forces.”
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Imran stuck to his coded narrative in the article, writing that “I believe the message from the American official was to: remove Khan’s ministerial position through a vote of no confidence or otherwise.” He adds that “within weeks our government was overthrown” and found , that former COAS General Bajwa “has been working for several months on our allies and parliamentary backbenchers to move against us.”
The Economist added a statement at the end of the article regarding this claim that both the Pakistani government and the US State Department “reject Mr Khan’s allegations of US meddling in Pakistani politics”.
According to Khan, interim governments at the federal and provincial levels are “constitutionally illegal”. In the February 8 election, he opines that people are “skeptical” that the elections that are being held “have been denied in two provinces”.
The article also talks about the popularity the PTI garnered after Imran’s ouster: “People took to the streets to protest this regime change, and over the next few months the PTI won 28 out of 37 by-elections.” Imran writes that this popularity was “unnerving”. those who deposed him.
Imran wrote that the May 9, 2023 incident was a “false flag operation” that was “falsely blamed [on the PTI]”, adding that “speed showed that it was pre-planned”.
The article also says that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz supremo Nawaz Sharif “has struck a deal with the establishment that will support his acquittal and support him in the upcoming elections.”
Khan reiterates that the PTI is not allowed to campaign freely, writing that he remains “imprisoned in solitary confinement on absurd charges that include treason. The few leaders of our party who remain free and are not underground are not even allowed to organize local workers’ congresses.”
Even if elections were held in such a situation, they would be a “disaster and a farce,” according to Imran.
