Islamabad has pulled the plug on the last government Imran Khan’s party still ran, and President Asif Ali Zardari was the one holding the cord. Zardari’s signature on Sunday placed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a restless region bordering Afghanistan, under direct federal control, a step Sharif’s ministers had urged hours earlier. The elected administration of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is suspended, and its chief minister, Sohail Afridi, was detained soon afterwards, according to a party lawmaker.
The stated reason is militancy. Attacks by Islamist fighters have surged in the province, and federal ministers accuse the PTI of dragging its feet on counterterrorism, even of sympathising with the Taliban. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said 518 police officers had been killed there in roughly eighteen months. Khan’s camp rejects the charge and says Islamabad starved it of money and equipment.
The timing tells its own story. Since 4 October, Afridi has been leading a protest convoy through the province, with Islamabad as the destination and Khan’s release as the demand. The capital has sealed its approach roads with shipping containers, and talks collapsed over security cooperation and over access to the jailed former prime minister, including a visit by his doctor.
Governor Faisal Karim Kundi now runs the province for an initial six months, supported by an eleven-member advisory council made up largely of technocrats. Twelve of the most volatile districts will answer directly to the federal government, and troops are being deployed to back the civil administration. Lawmakers in both chambers are due to vote on the package shortly.
To Zulfikar Bukhari, who speaks for Khan’s movement, this is “more of a coup disguised as emergency”, one likely to end in violence. The cleric-politician Maulana Fazlur Rehman, no ally of Khan, also condemned the move as an assault on democracy.
