Why Imran Khan's 'bypoll six' is a turning moment in Pak politics

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s stupendous victory in the bypolls over the weekend has not only left the Shehbaz Sharif-led coalition government red-faced, but also added weight to his demand for early elections in the country.

Khan, the chief of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) won six out of eight seats of the National Assembly, the lower house of the Pakistani Parliament, that he contested in bypolls over the weekend. While he only lost one seat in Karachi to Pakistan People Party (PPP)’s Hakeem Baloch, PTI member Meher Bano lost the other one to Ali Musa Gillani of PPP in Multan. Khan won the seats in Mardan, Charsadda and Peshawar in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province, Faisalabad and Nankana Sahib in Punjab province and Korangi district of Karachi in the Sindh province.

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The former prime minister, who set a new precedent by contesting in as many as eight seats and winning six of them, is officially supposed to settle for one of them. PTI leaders, however, have said that he will not take up any of the seats to push for national elections sooner than the stipulated month of October next year.

‘Win reflects Khan’s popularity’

Political analysts say even though symbolic in nature, Khan’s lone feat of winning six of eight seats against a coalition of 13 political parties, was no small matter and shows his immense popularity among a nation of over 220 million people.

Besides his popularity, Khan’s campaigns batting for early elections and strong narrative building against the government seems to have steered public opinion in his favour, say analysts.

Since the fall of his government through a trust vote in April, Khan has been holding massive rallies across the country, and accusing Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)-led coalition government and the military of overthrowing his government. He also plans to take out a “long march” of his supporters in Islamabad to push for his demand of an earlier election.

“It (the win) underlines a reality which may be bitter for the entire ruling alliance…Imran Khan’s narrative is still galvanising many people across the country,” Imtiaz Gul, a political analyst from the Center for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad told AP.

Stating that the bypoll results reflect that the people of the country favour an early election, senior PTI leader and former minister Fawad Chaudhry has urged the government to take a decision in this regard.

“I ask the government and the establishment to respect the will of the masses and immediately announce fresh elections in the country,” Chaudhry said in a tweet.

Shehbaz government on teetering ground

Khan’s sweeping triumph also comes at a time when the country is in the midst of an economic crisis worsened by severe floods which has kept almost a third of Pakistan under water.

The World Bank has called the current economic distress greater than that caused by the 2005 earthquake and the floods in 2010. While Moody has downgraded the country’s credit rating, Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves have fallen by a whopping $302.9 million to reach $7.596 billion from $7.89 billion on September 30 – the lowest in three years.

Analysts, however, say the crisis paired with Khan’s recent win may not be enough to convince the Sharif government to call for early elections.

“Unless we see a widespread social unrest which triggers an early election being called, markets will look past political noise,” Eng Tat Low, a market analyst at Singapore-based Columbia Threadneedle told Bloomberg.

Khan, who came to power in 2018 with the promise of creating a “new Pakistan”, soon lost the support of the Army, which was instrumental in his win.

Accusing him of bringing economic instability, as the Opposition pressured him to quit, Khan in April dissolved the Parliament by asking all 131 lawmakers of his party to resign from the lower house. The Supreme Court, however, ruled in favour of the Opposition parties, allowing them to bring a motion against him.

Also read: What’s the dispute between Imran Khan and Pakistan govt about?

The recent bypolls were to fill the posts that were left vacant by PTI parliamentarians. The Election Commission, however, is holding the bypolls in phases and so far has announced polls only in the said eight seats.

Even though Khan’s bypoll win is a morale booster for his party, the Election Commission’s accusation that the party received foreign funds from the US, Australia and the UAE, a charge that PTI has rubbished, may be detrimental to Khan’s political career, say experts.