Pakistan Elections 2024: Will Imran Khan bowl out army from prison?

Pakistan Elections 2024: It's not the first time that India's western neighbour, which came into being in 1947 after a bitter partition on religious lines, is going to polls with an imprisoned former prime minister. As Pakistan goes to polls on February 8, Imran Khan, the South Asian nation's Cricket World Cup-winning captain-turned-politician, is the prisoner number 804 at a jail in Rawalpindi, Islamabad's satellite town that houses Pakistan Army's headquarters.

Khan cast his vote through postal ballot from Adiala jail, minutes after it was reported that mobile phone services including the internet was suspended across Pakistan.

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This Muslim-majority country of 241 million holds a rare distinction as a state whereno prime minister has ever finished full term. The elections are widely believed to be 'selections' by the military-intelligence nexus that has long dominated the country's politics and has directly ruled for several decades.

Imran Khan: Ousted in April 2022, shot in November, 2022

The former Pakistani prime minister was ousted from power following a parliamentary no-trust-vote in April 2022. His administration was replaced with a coalition government led by Shehbaz Sharif.

That coalition was replaced by an unelected caretaker government inAugust 2023.

On 3 November 2022, Khan was shot in an assassination attempt in Wazirabad, Punjab, during a political rally. As his falling out with the country's powerful army dominated the political discourse, dozens of cases followed Khan's way.

Then a major moment of reckoning came.

Imran Khan's supporters pulled off a 'mini-intifada' in May 2023 against Pakistani military.

It did not take long for anumber of high-profile exits from the PTI that rocked the boat of populism Khan was sailing in.

Since August 2023, Khan has been in custody following a conviction in a corruption case, among dozens of cases lodged against him since he was ousted from power after a parliamentary no-trust vote in April 2022.

On August 9, 2023,Pakistan's election commission formally disqualifiedKhan for five years.

With just days to go for polling,Pakistan's courts handed down two more sentences to Khan,who was already serving three years in prison.

Even during arrest, Khan deployed Artificial Intelligenceto campaign. But then came Pakistan's election commission's order that stripped his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of its election symbol, the cricket bat. Pakistani election commission's order has emerged as a real blow to whatever was left of Khan's prospects in the elections after his fallout with the army.

This is becausePakistan has one of the lowest literacy rates in South Asia, with some of Imran Khan's strongholds in the predominantly tribal Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province particularly backwards in terms of Human Development Indicators. Voters in these tribal areas identify Khan's party primarily with its bat symbol. Given Khan's acclaimed record as one of the finest cricketers Pakistan has ever produced, his party is identified with the cricket bat across Pakistan.

In fact, 'Ballay pe thappa' (Stamp on the Bat) was the defining rallying call for Khan's supporters in 2018 when the PTI chief, then backed by Pakistan's army-intelligence complex, managed to put together a coalition to be in Islamabad's Prime Minister's Office.

The PTI-backed candidates are now contesting elections as independentswith their own symbols.

The party has developed a website where voters can put in their constituency and discover their PTI-backed candidate’s symbol.

On the voting day, with internet and mobile phone services suspended, the expectations of Khan's ability to bowl out army from prison have toned down further.

(With inputs from agencies)