Islamabad, the military-built capital of Pakistan, made the appearance of a city under siege on Friday. Shipping containers and trucks blocked roads in a bid to frustrate citizens who were mobilized by their support of one man, Imran Khan.
The previous afternoon, the leader of one of Pakistan’s major political parties had walked out of the country’s Supreme Court, wearing his trademark shades and smiling after two days of arrest. Deeming his arrest in a long-running corruption case “invalid and illegal”, the court asked the 70-year-old cricket star to turn to a populist riot denouncing the violence that erupted after his detention.
While Khan was in custody, some of his supporters clashed with police and burned their cars, killing at least five people across Pakistan. There have even been attacks on army buildings – unprecedented in a country where generals sit above politics but run the show behind the scenes.
During the unrest, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif called on the army to take control of two provinces: Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as well as in Islamabad. Together, these regions make up about two-thirds of the country’s population of 230 million. Some social networks have also been partially blocked, to contain the online anger spreading among Khan’s legions of followers.
To his defenders, Khan, who survived an apparent assassination attempt in November, is the people’s unwavering patriotic voice. To his critics, he is a dangerous demagogue who is more an agent of chaos than an agent of change.
Elections are due this year, when Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party is likely to defeat Sharif’s faltering government, which itself ousted Khan last year. Frantic scenes in Islamabad and elsewhere confirmed his status as Pakistan’s most powerful politician. “In the coming days, he will face a real test of leadership,” says Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s former permanent representative to the United Nations. “First, he has to rein in his supporters, condemn the violence that has taken place, and second, if they decide he still has to answer these charges, then he has to answer for them.”
Although he claims kinship with the common man, Imran Ahmad Khan Niazi was born in 1952 into a wealthy family in Lahore. He attended an elite school in Pakistan, and read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University. But Khan made his debut as a cricketer, captaining the national team since 1982 and, for many Pakistanis, remaining a hero for captaining them to victory over England in the 1992 World Cup. Three years later, he married Jemima Goldsmith, in the first of three marriages. When Khan launched his political career soon after, he tapped into the nostalgia of his sporting triumph, while channeling the masses’ disgust at the industrialists and political dynasties who run Pakistan.
Khan founded PTI in 1996. He won one seat in the 2002 elections, in which he himself held. A decade later, he led protesters into the Pakistani tribal areas along the Afghan border, to protest US drone attacks. This endeared him to ordinary Pakistanis and the generals, who appreciated the nationalist gesture.
During his rise to power, Khan underwent a religious awakening and embraced Sufism. He shed his playboy image forever in 2018, when he married Bushra Bibi, his third wife, whom he describes as a spiritual leader.. The same year, his promises to combat endemic corruption and poverty catapulted him to national office in a government that had the support of the army.
But in 2020, Khan’s political opponents formed the Pakistan Democratic Movement, a coalition that accused him of being beholden to the military and demanded he step down. His relationship with the military began to deteriorate in 2021, when the candidate he sought to promote as the next army chief failed to secure the position the following year. Khan also disrupted relations with the International Monetary Fund by announcing politically motivated fuel subsidies.
Pakistan’s economy was in full crisis by 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove up the prices of the imported food and fuel it depends on. When Khan lost a parliamentary vote of confidence shortly after the war began, he accused the military and the United States of bringing him down. Both denied the charge.
In recent months, with inflation mounting and Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves declining, Khan’s stock has soared again. He led protests across the country calling for the upcoming elections to go ahead. During Ramadan, the politician was seen outside his home in Lahore, sitting on a mat while sharing iftar with supporters and sympathizing with food prices. The country’s economic crisis is now acute, and Moody’s Investors Service warned this week that it could default if it fails to resume the stalled $6.5 billion International Monetary Fund programme.
The corruption case over which Khan has been arrested centers around the Qadir Trust, a social welfare organization he and his wife founded in 2018. Pakistani officials said they were investigating whether the fund served as a front for an alleged bribe from a real estate agent. Developer – Claim Khan rejects. Conviction can stop him from running.
For a leader who has built his following on charisma and street smarts, the legal challenge will present Khan with new tests of his leadership. Pakistanis – facing the threat of more violent unrest – are holding their breath.
john.reed@ft.comAnd farhan.bokhari@ft.com