Imran Khan has been imprisoned in Rawalpindi for months, while Bibi surrendered this week and is being held at her home, declared a “sub-jail”, on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has been severely hamstrung ahead of the election, with scores of leaders jailed, supporters barred from holding rallies, and the party stripped of its talisman cricket bat symbol.
The party, however, is looking to reverse the setbacks with massive online campaigns, led by new candidates who are first-time contestants, a BBC report said.
This means even if Imran Khan is in jail, the PTI will continue to take his advice and work out strategies with him. For now, the PTI said it will request the high court to scrap the trial court’s verdict against Imran Khan and his wife.
Imran Khan, who was booted from office by a vote of no confidence in April 2022, insists nearly 200 offences he has since been charged with have been fabricated by the military-led establishment to stop him from contesting elections on February 8.
Some 12.7 crore people are eligible to vote in a fractious poll many analysts describe as heavily influenced by the military, who directly ruled Pakistan for decades and continue to act as political kingmakers.
Three-time former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returned from a self-imposed exile and saw many convictions evaporate — a sign his party has been anointed by the generals to lead the next government.
With each side decrying the other as traitors, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari claims he is the only candidate pointing a way out of polarised politics ahead of next Thursday’s election. Bhutto Zardari is trying to position himself as a moderate outside the melee — pledging truth and reconciliation, release of political prisoners and an end to “the politics of vendetta”.
Pakistan is enjoying one of its longest period without direct army rule, but analysts say the military has been again intervening in civilian affairs at unprecedented levels in recent years. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto — Bilawal’s grandfather and Pakistan’s ninth Prime Minister — was deposed by an army coup and hanged in 1979.
While cricket star Imran Khan benefited from military backing when his PTI party surged to power in 2018, his rise was also seen as a sea change by the youth bucking a tradition of dynastic politics.
With inputs from AFP
