Heading towards a confrontation?
With two of Pakistan's main parties in the government calling for protests outside the country's Supreme Court tomorrow, it seems that political tensions are only going to rise
With two of Pakistan’s main political parties - the PML-N and the religious outfit JUI-F - calling protests in Islamabad on Monday (May 15) - there’s not much hope for a de-escalation in the tense political situation currently prevailing in the country.
Both parties are key members of the PDM ruling coalition. The PML-N’s firebrand leader (& niece of the current PM) Maryam Nawaz will lead her party’s protesters while the JUI-F has been called by its chief Maulana Fazlur Rahman. The venue for both protests is the country’s Supreme Court and the JUI-F activists have been told that their protest will be against the “behaviour of the Supreme Court”. The protest call by the JUI-F is especially significant because it has always demonstrated street power, which it derives from its support and membership amongst the country’s madrassahs and its hundreds of thousands of students.
The country’s top court is being increasingly seen by many who are not supporters of Imran Khan as overtly going out of its way to favour him and his party’s leaders. The country’s top court also has internal divisions with several of its 15 judges publicly at odds with Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial and have publicly urged that the way the Court runs needs to be modified. In fact, to that effect, Pakistan’s Parliament has signed a law that redraws the way in the Court operates but that mechanism is not yet being followed by the Chief Justice.
As for former Prime Minister Imran Khan he has not backed off and his attacks on senior military officers have continued. A day after his release ordered by the courts, he launched a verbal assault on the military’s official spokesman, a 2-star general, comparing him to a child who wasn’t “even born” when he (Imran Khan) was touring the world representing his country (Khan first represented Pakistan as a cricketer when he was 18).
Since then he has given an interview to Sky News where he has repeated much of what he has been saying, notable among them that he will not talk to the government and that he believes that the military and in particular the army chief are to ensure that he does not contest the next election
Imran Khan interview to Sky News
As things stand currently, they will only get worse before the situation gets better.