Rarely has a general election in Pakistan been so rigged. The ballot to be held on February 8, in a climate of extreme repression, marks the civic death of the country's most popular man, executed by his enemies, the army on the one hand, and the Sharif and Bhutto clans on the other. Imran Khan, 71, was jailed on August 5, 2023, one year after being ousted from power by a parliamentary coalition. He was declared ineligible for five years, then 10. His party, the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), was decapitated. Most of its leaders are under lock and key, party rallies and fundraisers have been blocked, and online meetings interrupted by internet blackouts. All these obstacles are designed to prevent a PTI electoral landslide.
The final blow was struck by the electoral commission and validated by the Supreme Court, namely the ban on candidates using the party's traditional logo, the cricket bat, on ballot papers. Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Center, commented: "The ruling deals perhaps the biggest electoral blow to date" and called it "brazen pre-polls rigging," highlighting the disappearance of a crucial reference for voters.
Half of Pakistan's adults are illiterate, and the PTI is recognizable by this symbol, linked to the career of its founder, Khan, a former cricket champion who became a national hero by winning the World Cup in 1992. PTI candidates have been forced to run as independent candidates, with their own logo. Two days before the polls, police in Punjab, the most populous province and the most decisive for the elections, continued to raid party offices and the homes of party leaders to prevent any form of meeting.
Ignored by the largely government-controlled media and banned from campaigning, the PTI has tried to get around the difficulties by using social media. "The list of our PTI candidates can be viewed on Imran Khan's Facebook page. We have managed to field candidates in all constituencies and held rallies online," said Faisal Amin Khan, a former minister in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government. "If the elections are transparent, we'll win hands down. If they're not, people won't accept it."
From his cell in Adiala jail, Rawalpindi, Khan remains combative and calls on voters to take "their revenge at the ballot box." "Tell them that we are not sheep that can be driven with a stick," he urged on his X account.
Right up until the opening of the polls, the courts have been relentless in their pursuit of him. Indicted in 100 proceedings, he was recently given three new sentences, of 10, 14, and seven years' imprisonment, in three different cases. He was found guilty of selling state gifts, violating state secrets for revealing a diplomatic cable from the former Pakistani ambassador to the US, which he claimed proved an international conspiracy against him, and even illegal marriage. On February 4, a court declared that he had contravened the Islamic law in force in Pakistan, according to which a divorced woman must wait three months before remarrying. In 2018, shortly before the elections he won, he had married Bushra Bibi, a religious Pakistani recently divorced for the third time. She will serve her sentence in their villa in the hills above Islamabad.
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