Imran Khan orders party members to quit government

in Islamabad

Politicians representing Pakistan’s third largest party will quit their seats in parliament as part of a high-stakes effort by former cricket star Imran Khan to bring down the government of a country long blighted by political instability.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, vice-chairman of Mr Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, announced the plan yesterday following days of demonstrations in Islamabad against alleged fraud in last year’s election.

It was a dramatic escalation of the party's dispute with prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whose faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) won a crushing victory in last May's general elections. Last night Mr Khan further raised the political stakes by leading his supporters on Islamabad's sensitive "red zone", a move that is likely to spark violent clashes with security forces.

Mr Khan claims a massive vote-rigging campaign deprived his party of victory, even though the PTI had never before won a significant number of seats and international observers said the election had been the cleanest in the country’s history.

Accusations dismissed

Although Mr Khan’s accusations have been dismissed by most election experts, it is feared a sustained campaign could undermine Pakistan’s fragile democracy. The country has a history of military coups and army-backed dismissals of elected governments.

Last May’s election was the first transition of power between two democratically elected governments in Pakistan.

Several analysts described Mr Khan’s dramatic decision to order his 34 members of Pakistan’s National Assembly to resign as a desperate attempt to regain ground lost after staging an underwhelming “Freedom March” from Lahore to Islamabad last week.

"Step by step he is trying to delegitimise the government," said Najam Sethi, editor of the Friday Times.

“He is trying to demonstrate his commitment to the cause and to remain a player after his dismal showing in the last few days.”

Mr Khan had promised to swamp the capital with a million of his supporters, but the crowd has rarely crept above some 20,000 people, and has frequently been far fewer.

The turnout has also been upstaged by a parallel protest by Tahir-ul-Qadri, a Canada-based televangelist who enjoys wide support through his network of schools and mosques in Pakistan. He is also calling for the resignation of the Sharif government but, unlike Mr Khan, wants the country to be ruled by a “national government” of technocrats, rather than freshly elected politicians. – (Guardian service)