The real reason his PM career was untenable was because (a) he pissed off the Pakistani military by threatening to unilaterally replace the military leader, whose support was the only reason he became PM in the first place, and (b) his party appointed some virtual unknown and definite incompetent (who was a friend of his wife's) as the leader of the Punjab province which has over 50% of the population of Pakistan.
His latter action also angered members of his own party and members of his alliance that saw their own political careers threatened because he took such politically poor actions with half the country's population.
Finally, what would have been astonishing is if Imran Khan (or anyone for that matter), would have completed his term. He would have been the first PM to do so in Pakistan's history.
It really doesn't require a conspiracy theory centered around America to explain something that is the norm in Pakistan.
If everybody hates him, then censoring him is pointless. I don't know anything about any of these people or parties but what you're saying doesn't pass my sniff test.
He was unpopular. Here's a poll from when the no-confidence vote passed (Bloomberg referencing Gallup Pakistan polling).
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-13/majority-...
That being said, the only thing that matters isn't just overall support. The groups supporting also matter. And even though Khan had minority support, he has support among the extreme religious right of Pakistan, who are organized enough to shut down the country and motivated enough that they would do that even if it costs damage and lives.
And this is talking about removing an incumbent. Incumbents almost alway have a political edge. No one wants to throw out an incumbent until things are really bad.
That’s a -14 rating.
Acknowledged in my original comment.
A -14 difference does not make him "extremely unpopular". Merely less than a majority. A 43% rating is higher than Biden has, but no one would say he is "extremely unpopular".
And then there's the fact that it's a -14 difference between his party and everyone else. Given that "everyone else" includes two other major parties, it's pretty much a given that his party has more support than any other party. In comparison:
- In the last Canadian elections, no party got over 34%. In the last 20 years, no party even got 40%.
- In the last UK elections, Boris Johnson got just over 43%. And only once in the last 20 years did someone get more than that.
If IK's party really had 44% of the public's support, they will likely win any election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Punjab_provincial_by-elec...
Bro, if you want to lie, at least lie at something which can’t be countered by other sources.
Among all the leaders atm, khan is the most popular one. Ever since he was ousted, he has been calling rallies and people are coming out for him. He has pulled biggest crowd in pakistan history. All can be seen on YouTube.
I can’t even read rest of your comment given that I already know that either you are very disconnected from reality or you have some other motive to discredit khan.
This is the same flawed argument that US Republicans use on why Trump couldn't have gotten 46.9% of the 2020 popular vote, but he did, and is thus, unpopular.
Prime Ministers of Pakistan don't usually manage to serve out their term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Pak...
You are lying through your teeth.
The plain facts, in no particular order:
1. Imran Khan's party had much larger support in 2013 elections, and that support was suppressed via election rigging. Its impossible to really say wether he would won an outright majority then (probably not), but who knows
2. In 2018, there was massive rigging to ensure that Imran Khan would NOT win an outright parliamentary majority. This was admitted to, PLAIN AS DAY, by one of the crooks who is currently "defence minister" (what a joke). He openly and plainly admitted that he was losing during the count in his constiuency, he picked up the phone and complained to the army chief, and lo and behold - the remaining count miracoulusly went in his favour.
Multiple other examples like this. THE ONLY REASON that the previous opposition were complaining about rigging is because, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY, they were handicapped in rigging in their own favour,in their own localities.
3. Imran Khan was extremely unpopular with the public?
Complete hogwash. BEFORE HE EVEN MENTIONED THE US INVOLVEMENT, he held a number of political rallies, in the last week of his premiership. One such rally resulted in A MILLION PEOPLE coming to Islamabad.
A MILLION NEW CELL PHONE NUMBERS were registered in the Islamabad area by telco's during that weekend
So there goes your entire narrative that you were trying to falsely push.
The best you have is 2013 numbers to make claims about a 2020+ situation. I don’t think I need to say anything else to prove your lies.
What a joke. What reasonable person would point to 2013 numbers to justify their claims about a 2022 election.
It's like watching a loud public domestic argument between people you've never seen before and never will again.
My post was in reply to the outright lies pushed by asdajksah2123.
But in response to this "gem" of yours later in this thread, to whit:
> The most hilarious thing is that a conspiracy theory that Imran Khan created days before he was ousted with absolutely no evidence at all is supposed to be given any value because he lost a no confidence vote.
The evidence is actualy pretty damning. I'm just going to give a basic cliff notes version:
- the US tried to make a back door deal with the Pak military to give them bases in Pak, post-Afghan withdrawal. In addition to the usual fluff pieces in the NYT pushing this agenda, there was recorded testimony to Congress acknowledging this (all in 2021).
- Imran Khan squashed all of this. Since that point, the US had essentially decided to push for a coup in Pakistan. And this coincided nicely with the personal objectives of the other 2 power centers - namely the military high command, and the other 2 main political parties/crime families. Now you had a collusion of interests between scoundrels.
Since then:
- there were numerous meetings between US officials, and various low-level parliamentarians. All of whom are so low-level that no foreign dignatory has any business meeting with them. Much less having weekend getaways with them in Bhawalpur farmhouses (YES - we have the nitty gritty details)
- tens of millions of US$ was moved to Karachi, from the US to Zardari's crime family, and used to BUY the votes of multiple MPs. These are the very same MP's who then defected. Those defections were then used by the military to push those junior coalition partners in Imran Khan's government to jump ship (I explained in an earlier comment how the military deliberately interfered in the 2018 elections to prevent Imran Khan from getting an outright majority then - THIS is why!)
- THAT was the reason why a MILLION people came to Islamabad to protest - BEFORE Imran Khan even mentioned ANYTHING about the US involvement. The bribery was open and rather disgusting.
- the diplomatic cable mentioned by many IS real. It DOES exist. Otherwise - answer this - why would the military lodge an Official Secrets Act case and threaten THE THEN prime minister with arrest if he publically disclosed the contents?
Mr. Addicted: you're pushing a narrative that has been completely exposed within Pakistan as a pack of outright lies. Its all been exposed and reported upon - in front of 220 MILLION people. The only reason you get to pretend otherwise to a non-Pakistani audience is because nearly all of this investigative reporting was/is in Urdu.
And the cherry on top is now this:
now - even WITH massive anti-Imran vote rigging and himself removed in a coup d'etat, his party has wiped the floor with the opposition in various by-elections - in areas considered absolute strongholds of that opposition.
In a free and fair election - its quite possible that Imran Khan could win 80% of the seats. EIGHTY PERCENT!
Stick that in your pipe, and smoke it!
Spread across various platforms, from cable news stations (ARY, Bol TV) which broadcast to multiple continents, to youtube podcasts which get million plus views for 2 to 3 news videos, per day, every day.
And you're pretending that you're unaware of any of this? If you are an Urdu speaker as you claim, there's no point asking what rock have you been hiding under. There's no rock big enough to explain such indifferent self-imposed ignorance.
There is no chance of speaking truth on the official airwaves - the other channels threw their lot in with the coup from day 1 (that includes Geo TV, Hamid Mir, etc). Those channels that attempted to have been forcibly shutdown (eg: ARY, and now Bol)
I'll drop just a few recommendations;
- Imran Riaz Khan (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaszgR2TH3qNw_CxLHAd2SQ)
- Waqar Malik (UK based freelancer, but very dedicated) (https://www.youtube.com/c/WaqarMaliks)
- Haidar Mehdi (ex army officer, now based in Canada, still with links to many current serving high-ranking generals) (https://www.youtube.com/user/shrmehdi)
You will find that people like Imran Riaz Khan (who was imprisoned just a few weeks ago) still have to be careful about what they say (hence repeated allusions to "powerful behind the scenes forces"), but Haider Mehdi and Waqar Malik, by dint of the fact that they are free from kidnapping and torture, have been quite open about calling a spade, a spade.
When it comes to mainstream reporting, then Arshad Sharif and Sami Ibrahim have been quite couragous and steadfast. Both have been targetted by this coup-regime. Sami was actually attacked outside the Bol TV offices (he is the president of the news division). While Arshad has just recently had to go into exile (even though he is from a respected military family, and his brother died while on military duty - combating terrorists).
I would suggest going through some of Haider Mehdi's vlogs from a few months ago to understand how we got here. He has only done a few (Waqar has so many that you wouldn't know where to start)
It just means his base is rabid, not exactly that he's popular.
"Rabid", in the context that you're using it, applies really well to those who keep trying to push a consistent narrative of:
- nothing to see here, move on
- just a few agitated locals, who can't count past 10
- the generals are really good chaps at heart
- don't mind the fact that they are kidnapping politicians & journalists in broad daylight, and subjecting them to CIA-inspired Abu Ghraib style torture
- none of the above in any way confirms that this "deep state" has lost control, and is continuously escalating as it gets continuously desperate
Yes, "rabid" does cover that.
On the other hand, attracting millions to your rallies, winning by-elections in a landslide DESPITE intensive vote-rigging against you, breaking all sorts of viewership records across all platforms (including tagspaces and twitter trends) ...
yes, the term "popular" DOES cover that.
Do people really think western powers care that much about Imran Khan's opinion on Russia-Ukraine to pull off a regime change in one of the largest and most unstable countries (that too with nuclear weapons) in the world? It's a tactic for such politicians and countries to make themselves feel more important on the global stage, nothing more.
Pakistan has always been run by its military. Politicians who get out of line quickly get deposed/exiled/assassinated. There is nothing new or surprising with the latest development.
Here is Wikipedia on this topic, which is actually one of the more "US intelligence friendly" sources out there: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in... This list is endless and shocking.
Pakistan is a big and important country, so their position is actually important. Furthermore, for any empire, it's vital that it gets other smaller countries in line, even if the small country's position would be irrelevant.
The way I see it is that most countries' leaders will always be both popular and unpopular in a significant portion of the country so it is always possible to frame a revolution/coup/insurgence as either a great thing or a bad thing.
I don't know what happened in this case, and in complicated scenarios like these, there are always many factors and forces at play, but it's certainly not unreasonable to think that foreign powers gave a little push in order to see the outcome they wanted in the region.
To further your point: Pakistan has the 5th largest population in the world, has complicated relationships (including contested borders 20 miles from its capital) with #2 and #1, and has a weak enough economy that a little money can go a long way. I would be shocked if the US weren't applying any force to its politics.
We have a saying that most countries have an army but in Pakistan the army has a country.
Gaddafi was killed and his sons were murdered in front of him because he threatened petro dollar. before that he was given red carpet in france and even camped in sarcozy lawn.
now Russia and China threaten the petro dollar and I am worried what the US is going to do.
We still provide some significant funding to Pakistan for humanitarian and development (i.e. civilian) efforts. This information is widely available online.
So GP is wrong to be so confident and absolute about their claim that we still fund the Pakistani army, but we do indeed give money to their government, and the Pakistani government is not independent of its army. It’s a messy situation.
Just trying to provide a bit of a more nuanced view before this heavy-handed comment you’re replying to is dismissed outright.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_Libyan_financing_in_th...
Sarkozy got rid of an inconvenient witness... (the former french president has been indicted for a series of financial crimes related to Libya since).
[1] Jan 13 https://www.dawn.com/news/1669107 The vote happened early April
Some pretty big quotes should surround "democratically". Also, the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to enact constitutional Sharia Law, something unfavorable even amongst the Muslim-majority populace. If we're going to cherry-pick Egypt as an example here, would be nice to provide the whole picture of what went down (which this comment certainly isn't).
hmmmmm
Or wait, are you confusing subreddits with threads and admins with subreddit mods? That’s the only way your comment doesn’t read as downright insane.
here is the time article about it https://time.com/6160519/reddit-international-hate-speech-ba...
They refused to ban either subreddit for 2 years but a week after they criticized the war, they were both deleted.
These subreddits were against the russia-ukraine war and were stating that NATO pushed them.
more fun fact. typing "zelensky Pan" stops all auto-complete in google since people are searching for "zelensky pandora" but "Putin pan" brings out all pandora papers about it even though Zelensky is twice as much in pandora papers as Putin.
Even google has censored all negative news about zelensky in it's autocomplete.
Looking at your submission history, I'm shocked that it's taken this long. Dang must be on a holiday.
>These subreddits were against the russia-ukraine war and were stating that NATO pushed them.
So, what you're actually saying is that they were actually not against the Russian war of aggression? Your suggestion that they were simultaneously against the war and also trying to justify it doesn't really add up.
The reality is that Imran Khan had been anti-USA for years before that. If the U.S. was so worried about Pakistan they would maybe have done something in the year prior where he was eating against the US for his political support.
That whar he’s been doing for half a decade. It makes literally no sense at all.
The enemy of India is my friend, etc.
That said, if one is suspicious of American technology being weaponized for foreign policy, then Poland will be the place to watch next year. The Biden administration has every clearly told Poland they want a regime change. The EU is also on board.