Imran Khan seeks to bolster domestic support amid threat from opposition coalition and cooling relations with military
Addressing the crowds at a public rally in Punjab last week, Pakistan’s prime minister was on the attack. Western leaders,said, treated Pakistan as their “slave” and presumed that “whatever you say, we will do”.
As he fights for his political life, however, Khan has turned to a strategy he hopes will win him support, even as his government’s popularity is nosediving: brazen bashing of the west. According to a narrative being pushed by Khan and ministers close to him, the vote of no confidence is part of a conspiracy by foreign powers in the west, and even the CIA, to topple his government, which is no longer willing to support the actions of the west and Nato as they did during the “war on terror”.
“I have more information than this,” Qureshi said cagily, adding that he would only reveal it once he had the green light from the prime minister. Khan’s anti-western rhetoric has also been taken as a sign of the prime minister’s concerns that the vote of no confidence poses a real threat to his ability to stay in power and become the first prime minister in Pakistan to complete a full term in office.
While Khan currently has a majority in parliament with his coalition partners, the opposition claims that it has the backing of at least 20 lawmakers from the ruling party and its allies. That would be enough to lose Khan the vote, currently scheduled for 25 March. Even allies of Khan’s have admitted he could be facing defeat.
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