A devoted admirer of Imran Khan recently told me that what is happening to the PTI has never happened to anyone before: a popular leader in jail, his party’s election symbol taken away, and a 14-year sentence in a case linked to a university trust.
My friend’s memory is enviably fresh, and selectively so. Pakistan’s history is full of such “firsts”, many of them worse.
Fatima Jinnah’s defeat by Ayub Khan in the 1965 presidential election is still widely regarded as rigged. Gen Zia ul Haq held non-party elections in 1985, keeping political parties out of the contest. The Pakistan Peoples Party had to swap its familiar symbol for the arrow.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, an elected prime minister, was hanged in 1979 after a trial that the Supreme Court itself, in a 2024 opinion, found did not meet the standard of a fair trial. Political workers were tortured in the Lahore Fort and flogged in public.
Benazir Bhutto’s governments were dismissed twice by presidential order, and Nawaz Sharif’s once; Yousuf Raza Gilani was removed by the Supreme Court. Gen Pervez Musharraf sent Nawaz Sharif into exile in Saudi Arabia, placed judges under house arrest and saw lawyers beaten in the streets. Asif Ali Zardari spent years in prison without a conviction being sustained.
Mr Khan’s own tenure added to the list. Opposition leaders were jailed. Journalists lost their jobs and some were abducted or attacked. His government sought action against Justice Waqar Seth, who had sentenced Musharraf. A monitoring judge was appointed to oversee the cases against Nawaz Sharif. The party fought for years to keep its foreign funding accounts from scrutiny. Pervaiz Elahi, whom he once called Punjab’s biggest bandit, became his ally and chief minister, and Sheikh Rashid, whom he once said he would not even hire as a peon, became his interior minister.
India revoked Kashmir’s special status in August 2019, weeks after Mr Khan said a meeting with Donald Trump felt like winning another World Cup. In 2017 the Supreme Court declared him sadiq and amin. In April 2022, rather than face a no-confidence vote, his government dissolved the National Assembly, a move the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional.
None of this justifies injustice today. But what is happening to the PTI is not the first time. The difference is only that those who came before endured it, and this time the cry is louder.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Lahore Times.
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