Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has skipped an attempt of ousting him from the office through a no confidence motion in the parliament. Writes Lucas Leiroz
Pakistani President Arif Alvi dissolved the Pakistani Congress on Sunday, April 3, at the request of Prime Minister Imran Khan. The decision was taken in the face of the opposition’s effort to start a no-confidence motion in the Parliament against the Prime Minister, which has been seen as an attempted coup d’état. Possibly, there is foreign interference in the case, considering the recent international positioning of Islamabad, which did not please the West.
The parliamentary opposition had prepared a bill to pass a no-confidence motion against PM Khan. Considering the Assembly’s internal alliances, the proposal was likely to pass, although Khan is a very popular name in Pakistani public opinion. However, on the initiative of the deputy president of the Assembly, Qasim Suri, an ally of Khan, the vote was blocked and declared unconstitutional, generating discontent in the opposition deputies, who refused to comply with the decision and remained at the facilities of the Assembly demanding the vote, led by Shehbaz Sharif, leader of the Muslim League and who was tipped to replace the Khan in case of approval of the measures to remove him from the post.
With pressure from the opposition increasing, the government perceived the deputies’ attitude as a threat of a coup and so took exceptional measures. Khan made a nationally televised speech stating that there was a coup attempt underway and that he had asked the president to effect the dissolution of the parliament in order to prevent the mutiny from succeeding. At the time, the PM also claimed that there was foreign interference in the Parliament, with international agents mobilizing the country’s internal forces to overthrow him.
Khan even accused the US of being behind the process to remove him from office. A few days ago, Khan accused the Washington of interfering in Pakistani affairs. According to local media, he received a report from the Pakistani ambassador to Washington, in which there was a file with the words of a senior US official saying that relations between the two countries would be better if the prime minister stepped down. Washington denied the legitimacy of the words.
Deepening the topic of US interference and explaining the rivalry between the countries, Khan said last Sunday that the US wants to “change the regime” in Pakistan because of his refusal to align the country with US positions on Russia and China, demanding of Islamabad a policy of alignment towards the West, to which the PM is unwilling to adhere. Closing his speech, Khan defined the opposition’s attitudes as a “blatant interference in domestic politics by the United States”.
The American practice of promoting regime change around the world is nothing new. Color revolutions, institutional coups and other hybrid warfare tactics have already become commonplace in Washington’s foreign policy, with which non-aligned regimes are replaced by puppet governments that join Western interests. Imran Khan maintains a government of sovereigntist ideology in foreign policy, being willing to either cooperate or compete with any world power, according to Pakistani interests.
This can be seen by analyzing, for example, how the prime minister has improved his country’s relations with India, even though both states faced a huge wave of military escalation a few years ago. Khan has been successful in promoting diplomatic pacification despite bilateral rivalry, which brings stability and improves the chances of progress for both sides. In the same vein, Khan has improved not only his ties to China, with which Pakistan has a historic partnership, but also with Russia, with the PM visiting Moscow in February – when diplomatic tensions with the US began to escalate.
The worst possible scenario for American interests in Pakistan is a government stable in its rivalry with India and with simultaneous broad cooperation with Russia and China. Also, the current Taliban government in Afghanistan worsens this scenario for the US, considering the group’s opposition to Washington and good ties to Islamabad. Now, with India already showing itself unwilling to serve some American interests, maintaining neutrality on the Ukrainian issue, the pro-Moscow turn of Islamabad sounds like a disaster for the West, which totally loses its space in that region of the planet, having to retreat further once.
So, there is not enough evidence for every analyst to say there was in fact a coup attempt against Khan, but it is evidently possible to say that the geopolitical scenario indicates that Washington would have such an interest and that recent history shows that such coups through Parliamentarian actions are practices commonly fostered by American intelligence to promote “soft”, non-violent regime change operations around the world. By dissolving the Parliament, the Pakistani government took a very clear geopolitical stance, positioning itself on the side of the emerging powers and against the hegemonic interests of the West. Considering that Pakistan has nuclear weapons and therefore a military escalation of tensions is not feasible, once again the US will have to withdraw from its role as “global police”.
Lucas Leiroz, researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.
