Now Is Not the Winter of Imran Khan's Discontent

BJ Sadiq reflects on the current troubles of the former Prime Minister of Pakistan and asks whether Imran Khan is too big to fail

Imran Khan shortly before his arrest in August 2023. Photo: KM Chaudary/Associated Press/Alamy Stock Photo

Pakistan’s long slide into its present economic catastrophe, which started with Imran Khan’s ousting from power in April last year, appears to have been completed by his arrest last month, in spite of growing public dissent.

For Khan too, things are far from going well. His refusal to acquiesce, and his uninhibited temper might just thwart any last hopes of reviving his political career.

“Is that not a perfect end to a perfectly glorious life?” cut a retired, cigarette-puffing, senior bureaucrat who’s always been very close to the power circles (and who chose to remain anonymous) with a muffled snigger.

“What are his chances?” I pushed him. And he replied very hastily, yet obscurely, repulsed by what to him was Khan’s inveterately asinine behaviour; his soi-disant political wit: “Imran’s never been known for duplicity, but there’s something not right about him; he always ends up making too many enemies.”