Graft conviction puts Pakistan ex-PM Imran Khan on the back foot

ISLAMABAD (Jan 17): Former prime minister Imran Khan, who was sentenced to 14 years for graft on Friday, may be locked away in jail but he remains Pakistan’s dominant political personality.

The former cricket star enjoyed popular support when he became premier in 2018 but fell out with the king-making military establishment and was booted from power in a 2022 no-confidence vote.

He then waged a risky and unprecedented campaign of defiance against the top brass before swiftly becoming embroiled in a legal saga in which he has been accused of wrongdoing in around 200 cases.

Khan says the charges have been trumped up to prevent his comeback and his battle in the courts has become the nation’s defining political drama, spurring mass protests and unrest.

The 72-year-old’s sentencing on Friday is among his biggest setbacks since he was first jailed in August 2023. His wife and spiritual guide Bushra Bibi was convicted alongside him.

However, Pakistan’s politics frequently see leaders return to high office after serving time in jail and, as a former national cricket captain, Khan has delivered victory in the face of seemingly impossible odds before.

“A cricket captain, to be leader, has to lead by example — he has to show courage if he wants his team to fight,” Khan wrote in his 2011 memoir.

“In times of crisis, he must have the ability to take the pressure.”

– All-rounder –

Khan was voted in by millions of Pakistanis who grew up watching him play cricket, where he excelled as an all-rounder and led the nation to a World Cup victory in 1992.

He ended decades of political dominance by dynastic parties and envisioned a national welfare state modelled on the Islamic golden age of the seventh to 14th centuries, a flourishing period in the Muslim world.

But his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party made little headway improving the country’s finances, with galloping inflation, crippling debt and a feeble rupee undermining economic reform.

Many prominent opposition figures were jailed during his tenure and rights groups decried a crackdown on media freedoms, with TV channels unofficially barred from airing his opponents’ views.

With the tables now turned, he faces many of those same curbs alongside his wife Bibi — a reclusive faith healer who married Khan shortly before he was elected.

Khan was shot and wounded in a November 2022 assassination bid he accused top military officers of plotting, crossing what analysts say was a red line in a country ruled by generals for decades.

His first short-lived arrest the following May sparked nationwide unrest, some of which targeted military facilities and which sparked a widespread crackdown against PTI.

Khan was barred from standing in February 2024 elections and was hit by a trio of fresh convictions just days before a poll marred by rigging allegations.

Bibi was also convicted in two of the cases, found guilty of graft and of marrying too soon after her divorce in breach of an Islamic law intended to leave no doubt about paternity in case of a pregnancy.

The convictions have been overturned or the sentences suspended in all those cases.

While Khan has languished in jail, his wife walked free in October and into the limelight in her attempts to have her husband released.

She appeared atop a convoy during protests in November, shattering her behind-the-scenes image.

– ‘Till the last ball’ –

Khan, the Oxford-educated son of a wealthy Lahore family, had a reputation as a playboy until he retired from international cricket.

He has developed a more pious image as a politician, regularly clutching a string of prayer beads as he makes public remarks.

Khan also busied himself for years with charity projects, raising millions to build a cancer hospital to honour his mother.

He tiptoed into politics and for years held the PTI’s only parliamentary seat.

The party grew during the military-led government of General Pervez Musharraf and the civilian government that followed, becoming a force in 2013 elections before winning a majority five years later.

Often described as impulsive and brash, Khan still trades on the charismatic persona he crafted on the pitch.

“I fight till the very last ball,” he said in one TV interview. — AFP