Deadlock Between Pakistani Prime Minister, Cleric Continues

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has held the position for only 18 months so far. (Wikimedia Commons)

Fazl-ur-Rheman, religious cleric and leader of Pakistan’s Assembly of Islamic Clerics (JUIF) political party, has led tens of thousands of his supporters in an anti-government protest in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, since October 31. They demand that Prime Minister Imran Khan resign and that the country hold a new election. The JUIF and other opposition parties alleged that the former cricket player-turned-minister and his Pakistan Movement for Justice (PTI) party rigged the 2018 elections. However, an EU observer who oversaw the elections found “no evidence of vote rigging” but “a lack equality of opportunity” between the different political parties running in the election. 

Pakistan’s economy currently faces high fiscal deficit, slow growth, and alarming rate of inflation. These conditions only exacerbate people’s discontent with the current prime minister. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that this year Pakistan will have mere 3.3 percent growth, which will slow to 2.4 percent the following year. Inflation is at a rising 11.4 percent, and stalling job opportunities have impacted lower- and middle-class Pakistanis the most. 

In addition to little economic progress since Khan came to power, Rheman and his party have accused him of failure to implement Islamic law.  

Although the opposition party leaders and the prime minister have already met twice, Khan refuses to step down but continues to acknowledge the opposition’s constitutional right to protest as long as they do not violate any of the pre-protest agreements made with the government. Besides bringing in additional police support and blocking some streets, government response to the protest has been as peaceful as the protestors themselves. 

In a rally with his own supporters, Khan said the ulterior motive behind the protest was to avoid government anti-corruption investigations that his administration has been championing since the beginning of Khan’s term. 

Of the 10,000 to 15,000 protesters in Islamabad, many are members of Rheman’s JUIF and students of the network of religious schools that he administers. They have so far displayed extreme discipline, refraining from any violence or property damage, as well as sleeping outdoors during the entire protest. 

Rheman’s religious schools have in the past provided both the Afghan Taliban militant group and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an anti-government Pakistani Taliban group, with supporters.

Human rights activists have criticized Rheman for his impassioned rally speeches, his refusal to include women in the protest, and even for preventing female journalists from reporting on the movement up until recently. Pamphlets from before the protests started have told women to “fast and pray” rather than participate. Not a single woman has so far directly taken part in the protests.

Rheman’s current protest against Khan ironically reflects the months-long 2014 protests Khan himself led against the incumbent prime minister at the time. Khan’s sit-in had also demanded the prime minister resign and that the country hold new elections. The former-prime minister, like Khan himself, refused to step down through the whole duration of the sit-in.