Pakistan at a crossroads: As Imran Khan remains 'absent', Munir can move forward unchallenged
Pakistan's former prime minister and cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has remained completely out of public view for more than six weeks with neither his party members nor his family able to establish any direct contact during this period.
His prolonged absence from public view has intensified concerns and deepened fears about his safety. Particularly so after a court order allowed weekly meetings with him.
Khan's son, sisters, senior, leaders of his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) , lawyers and even doctors have been barred from meeting him, effectively placing him in total solitary confinement.
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In a country where people are prone to conspiracy theories, a lack of verified updates or appearances has further fuelled concerns with many questioning whether Imran may have become the target of a possible assassination attempt or is otherwise being kept in undisclosed conditions.
What has significantly contributed to the swirling controversy about the health of Imran Khan is the lack of transparency about his confinement condition.
Pakistan government has dismissed rumours that Imran Khan has died in custody or been quietly moved out of Adiala prison in Rawalpaindi, where he has been kept since August, 2023, and insisted that he remains inside the jail and is in stable condition.
Imran Khan has been in jail ever since a court first handed him a three-year prison term in August 2023 in the Al-Qadir Trust case. Since then, successive corruption convictions have pushed his total sentence to 14 years, the longest jail term imposed on him so far.
The complete isolation of Imran Khan and denial of contacts with him has begun roiling politics in Pakistan. Demanding access to the PTI founder, party members have decided to stage a protest despite the restrictions imposed by the Pakistan government.
Undeterred, Imran Khan's supporters declared their street protest plans even as restrictions have been in place since November 18 for two months. This has raised the spectre of a confrontation between PTI and the authorities.
The gathering political unrest in Pakistan comes at a time when Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir has moved to appropriate to himself greater powers through a "constitutional coup" that would give complete control over all the three key pillars of Pakistan's power structure – the judiciary, executive and the military.
The parliamentary approval of passage of Pakistan's 27th Constitutional Amendment has been cited as the vehicle for the power consolidation by Munir including lifelong immunity from arrest and prosecution, a move critics say paves the way towards the return of a more ruthless military dictatorship.
The 27th constitutional amendment is projected to substantially change the way the country's top courts function.
Those defending the constitution changes take shelter behind the specious argument that they provide clarity and administrative structure to the armed forces and help ease backlog of cases in courts.
The 27th Constitutional Amendment marks one of the most sweeping power shifts in Pakistan's history. It effectively restores the army's dominance from an unspoken reality and gives it a legal framework that cements the military's control over the state.
The amendment rewrites Article 243 of the Constitution and creates a new position called the Chief of Defence Forces, giving the serving army chief command over the army, navy and air force.
This includes control over the National Strategic Command which manages Pakistan's nuclear and missile assets. It is a structure that not only ensures the military remains unchallenged but also reduces the Prime Minister to a ceremonial role in defence matters.
In its entire history, Pakistan's military has always played a decisive role calling and playing the shots in running the country's politics, sometimes seizing power in coups, and, on other occasions, pulling the strings from behind the scenes.
Military leaders like Pervez Musharraf and Zia-ul-Haq have in the last few decades said that the military-civilian rule relationship has always remained heavily imbalanced in favour of the men in uniform.
This imbalance has been deeply entrenched in Pakistan's identity as a security state, never allowing civilian politics to come out of its shadow.
One of the biggest beneficiaries of the 27th Amendment is Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) which can now operate across South Asia without civilian oversight under the pretext of national security.
According to Pakistan watchers in India, Munir realizes his mission can smoothly go ahead in the absence of resistance from civilian politicians and he perceives Imran Khan as the biggest challenge in his pursuit.
With Pakistan's ties with estranged ally Afghanistan at an all-time low and continuing military tension with India, Munir does not want to encounter any semblance of opposition to him.
