ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan on Sunday called on his supporters nationwide to mark Feb. 8 as a “Black Day” and hold protests on the one-year anniversary of last year’s general election that the jailed leader’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party says were rigged.
The national polls on Feb. 8, 2024, were marred by a countrywide shutdown of cellphone networks and delayed results, leading to widespread allegations of election manipulation by the PTI and other opposition parties. The caretaker government and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) deny the charges. The US House of Representatives, as well as European countries, have called on Islamabad to open a probe into the allegations — a move that Pakistan has thus far rejected.
Khan’s PTI candidates contested the Feb. 8 elections as independents after the party was barred from the polls. They won the most seats but fell short of the majority needed to form a government, which was made by a smattering of rival political parties led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
“We will observe February 8th as a Black Day nationwide,” Khan wrote on social media platform X. “On this day, the mandate of the Pakistani people was blatantly stolen.”
The former prime minister directed Ali Amin Gandapur, the chief minister of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where the PTI is in power, to lead caravans from across the province for a public gathering in Peshawar, the provincial capital, on Feb. 8.
“I also instruct the legal community, including the Insaf Lawyers Forum and other (PTI) wings, to observe this day with vigorous protests,” he added. “Legislators, party officials and people from all walks of life must commemorate this attack on democracy as a Black Day.”
Khan was ousted from power in 2022 after what is widely believed to be a falling out with the country’s powerful top generals. The army denies it interferes in politics.
He has been in prison since August 2023 and faces a slew of legal challenges that ruled him out of the Feb. 8 general elections and which he says are politically motivated to keep him and his party away from power. Khan has either been acquitted or his sentences have been suspended in most cases. However, in the latest blow, Khan was handed a 14-year jail sentence in a land corruption case last week.
Another pending case against Khan relates to charges of inciting supporters to attack military facilities to protest against his arrest on May 9, 2023.
His party is accused of leading several other violent protest rallies since the May 9 riots.
All cases against Khan have been tried inside prison, away from the public or media eye, on security grounds.
The sentence in the land bribery case is a setback to nascent talks between the PTI and the government aimed at cooling political instability in the South Asian nation.
