Pakistan appoints a transitional prime minister before the elections

Anwar-ul-Haq Kakara, a senator from Pakistan’s least populous province, was appointed interim prime minister on Saturday (August 12), waiting months until the elections, which would be without the country’s most popular politician, Imran Khan. “It was agreed that whoever should be the chief minister should be from a smaller province, so that the grievances of the smaller provinces might be dealt with.”Pakistani opposition leader Raja Riaz Ahmed said after a meeting with outgoing Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

He was chosen to lead a caretaker government by an alliance of two normally feuding parties, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which united to overthrow Khan. Imran Khan, who was ousted from power in April 2022, was sentenced last weekend on corruption charges to three years and imprisonment.

In recent months, the authorities have cracked down on Mr. Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI). Bloody clashes broke out in May between his supporters, who demonstrated thousands in the street, and the police. Almost all of his party leaders were arrested or forced into hiding.

Army weight

Parliament was officially dissolved on Wednesday, and elections must be held within three months, according to the constitution. But for months, in light of a particularly tense political climate, speculation has spread about its postponement, and the authorities have been striving to stabilize the country in the face of a security, economic and political crisis.

The data from the latest population census was released last weekend, and the government has been told that the Electoral Commission needs time to redraw constituency boundaries. The Electoral Commission did not comment directly. Asked on television if the vote will take place this year, Interior Minister Rana Sanalla said: ” no “.

Last month, parliament hastily passed a law giving the caretaker government more powers to negotiate with international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund. Additional evidence suggests that it could stay in place for a while. Some analysts believe the delay could give key coalition partners time to hone a strategy against Mr Khan’s party.

After his ouster, Syed Khan spent months rallying his supporters by staging a series of mass rallies and long marches, including one in which he was shot in the leg. “Assassination attempt” which he attributes to his opponents.

In Pakistan, the military is behind every election and has staged at least three successful coups since the country was formed from the partition of India in 1947. Khan benefited from genuine popular support when he took power in 2018, but analysts say that was only with the blessing of the country’s most powerful generals, with whom he reportedly fell out in the months leading up to his ouster.

Islamist attacks claimed by the Pakistani Taliban led by the Taliban in Pakistan (TTP) have also multiplied in Pakistan since the Afghan Taliban took over Kabul in August 2021. They appeared in Pakistan in 2007, and they are different from the Afghan Taliban. He shares a fundamentalist Islamic ideology with them.