With Pakistan’s most popular politician in jail and cynicism running high, can a new leader unite the country?

By Samina Yasmeen, The University of Western Australia

Pakistanis will head to the polls on Thursday to elect a new parliament and prime minister at a time of renewed political turbulence in the country.

The country’s popular former leader, Imran Khan, has been sentenced three separate times in recent weeks to lengthy jail terms. The timing before this week’s election is intended to send a message: the military wants him out of politics using a judicial pathway.

The military, which has directly and indirectly controlled Pakistan’s politics for seven decades, appears determined to reopen the political space for two other parties in the lead-up to the vote.

These are the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, led by three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and the Pakistan People’s Party, led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of former president Asif Ali Zardari and assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

So, with Khan in prison and barred from running, which party is likely to win the election and what challenges lie ahead for the new government?

Khan’s downfall

Khan, a former cricket star, led the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party to victory in the 2018 elections. But he lost the support of the military and was ousted in April 2022 through a no confidence vote in the National Assembly.

Since then, his party, PTI, has remained immensely popular. It dominated byelections in late 2022 to fill seats in the National Assembly that had been left vacant when PTI lawmakers resigned en masse to protest his ouster.

Last year, Khan was barred from politics for five years after being convicted on corruption charges. He maintains the charges were politically motivated. Then came the sentences handed down this year (it’s unclear if they will be served concurrently):

• ten years in prison for breaching the Official Secrets Act

• 14 years in prison for failing to disclose gifts received from foreign leaders, selling them and then not disclosing the amounts earned

• seven years in prison for being in an un-Islamic marriage.

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