Former cricket star who became Prime Minister of Pakistan in 2018 on a promise to fight corruption and help the poorest, Imran Khan remains very popular despite his conviction on Saturday which reduced his chances of returning to power.
Ousted from his post in April 2022 following a vote of no confidence, the former Prime Minister had pledged to govern the country for a second time and led a risky and unprecedented campaign against the army, an all-powerful institution in Pakistan, which he accuses of having abandoned his party.
Found guilty by an Islamabad judge, 70-year-old Imran Khan was taken to jail on Saturday to serve a three-year sentence, months ahead of a general election due by the end of the month. year.
Faced with more than 200 court cases motivated according to him by political considerations, the charismatic politician nevertheless remains extremely popular.
His first video on TikTok in July was viewed more than 135 million times in the first 36 hours. But the survival of his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), remains uncertain without him at the helm.
In November, he accused Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and a senior army officer of plotting to assassinate him at an election rally where he had been shot in the leg.
When he came to power in 2018, Mr Khan enjoyed broad popular support as he promised to fight corruption and improve the lot of poor people in this country of 220 million people, plagued by severe economic difficulties.
A versatile cricketer, an immensely popular sport in Pakistan, he was voted by millions who grew up watching him play and lead the country to World Cup victory in 1992.
With his party, he ended decades of dominance by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), the two major Pakistani parties, usually in conflict, which united their forces to oust him from power.
Mr. Khan wanted to make Pakistan a welfare state modeled on the Islamic Golden Age, from the 7th to 14th centuries, a period of cultural, economic and scientific prosperity in the Muslim world.
He did little to improve the country’s financial situation, however, with runaway inflation, crippling debt and a weak rupee undermining economic reforms.
Under his tenure, security has deteriorated in the country, especially since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
But the hardest blow to his leadership was his falling out with the military, the country’s kingmakers who can decide the rise and fall of a government.
This son of a wealthy family in Lahore, a graduate of Oxford, married three times after having maintained a reputation as a playboy during his sports career, has also been criticized for his complacency towards religious radicals.
Married for the third time in 2018 to Bushra Bibi, who comes from a conservative family and wears the veil, he has been a vocal defender of a controversial blasphemy law.
Entering politics on tiptoe, he occupied for years the only parliamentary seat of the PTI.
But the party grew considerably under General Pervez Musharraf’s military government, becoming a real force in the 2013 elections before winning a majority five years later.
Often described as impulsive and brash, Mr Khan often resorts to cricketing analogies to describe his political battles. “I fight to the last bullet,” he said in a television interview.
05/08/2023 16:36:30 – Islamabad (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
