Pakistani Legislator Imran Khan’s Pakistan Movement for Justice party (PTI) yesterday vowed to oust the country’s “corrupt” rulers, as the nuclear-armed state announced that it is to hold general elections on July 25.
The poll will bring to a head political tensions that have been building since former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif was ousted by the Pakistani Supreme Court on corruption charges and later barred from politics for life.
Khan is hoping to achieve a years-long dream of leading the country as its prime minister and the PTI is the main challenger to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), which was headed by Sharif until his ban.
PTI leaders have said that they are confident they will be able to defeat the PML-N.
“The Pakistani nation... can see the dawn of a new Pakistan, which will not be ruled by the corrupt,” the party said in a statement posted on Twitter yesterday along with a graphic that read “Mafia’s Game Over.”
“Stop us if you can,” it said in another tweet.
The bullish comments came after Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain on Saturday approved July 25 as the date for the elections, which offer the prospect of what would be only the second-ever democratic transfer of power in the country.
The government, led by Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, is expected to hand over power to a caretaker administration in the coming days.
Despite Sharif’s ouster, the PML-N has said it has invested in improving Pakistan’s rickety infrastructure and attracted billions of dollars in Chinese investment and denied allegations of graft against its leadership by opponents like Khan.
The PTI has vowed to fight corruption, presenting itself as a polar opposite of what it calls “status quo politicians.”
Since he was ousted, Sharif and the PML-N have become increasingly vocal in their confrontation with the country’s powerful military establishment and the courts, claiming that there is a conspiracy afoot to reduce the party’s power.
Sharif was the 15th prime minister in Pakistan’s seven-decade history — roughly half of it under military rule — to be removed before completing a full term.
The country saw its first ever democratic transfer of power following elections in 2013, which the PML-N won by a landslide.
“This is the second consecutive parliament to complete its tenure and we are now looking forward to... [going] to the people to get their verdict on our performance,” Pakistani Minister of Finance Miftah Ismail told reporters.
Despite numerous court rulings against the PML-N, the party has won a string of recent by-elections, proving that it will likely remain a powerful force.
It continues to enjoy large swathes of support in Punjab, the country’s most populous province, but will enter the election under increasing pressure.
In April, a court disqualified Pakistani Minister of Foreign Affairs Khawaja Asif for violating the country’s election laws, while Pakistani Minister of the Interior Ahsan Iqbal was shot in the arm in a suspected assassination attempt by a Muslim militant earlier this month.
Sharif also sparked a firestorm after suggesting that Pakistani militants were behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks, approaching what is seen as a red line in the country by touching on criticism of Pakistan’s military.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
RSS