ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan’s party has launched a nationwide campaign for a fresh election after his ouster from office through a no-trust vote in parliament, but analysts are skeptical of the outcome of the protest drive. 

The opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party is scheduled to hold public rallies in different cities across the country to mount pressure on newly elected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government to hold a snap election. The South Asian nation is scheduled to go to polls after August 2023, but the PTI wants to have it early to “seek a fresh mandate of public.” 

Khan’s party blames the United States (US) for toppling his government and bringing the then opposition alliance to power. Washington and political parties, now in power, have denied the allegation. 

“We want early election in Pakistan because we want to give people a chance to elect their representatives,” Sibghat Virk, a PTI media head in Islamabad, told Arab News. 

“The incumbent Sharif government is installed through a conspiracy and they don’t have the mandate to govern our country,” he said, referring to the “massive” public gatherings against the “puppet rulers” held recently. 

The PTI’s 123 lawmakers in a 342-member National Assembly resigned en masse to protest the ouster of their leader. The party has a government in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province and is struggling to retain its administration in the most populous Punjab province, where the opposition alliance has joined hands for a change. 

As part of its public campaign, the PTI will be holding a public gathering in Karachi on Saturday, followed by another in Lahore on April 21. 

“We have a complete strategy in place to force the government for an early election through a democratic process, including public demonstrations,” Virk said, adding Khan might unveil next part of his strategy at the Lahore rally. 

About dissolution of the KP assembly and resignations from other provincial legislatures, he said the party would make a decision in this regard at an “appropriate time” to have fresh polls “as early as possible.” 

Meanwhile, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has started the delimitation process to be ready for the general election, whenever it is called. A final list of 266 constituencies would be published on August 3, the ECP said earlier this week. 

Political analysts, however, say there are many ifs and buts regarding the early election and the PTI will have to mobilize wider segments of the society to achieve the goal. 

Khan and his party have demonstrated “huge popularity” across the country through large rallies and massive street demonstrations and created a “huge vacuum” in the National Assembly, the lower house of Pakistan parliament, said Dr. Moeed Pirzada, a TV anchor and editor of the Global Village Space (GVS) magazine. 

“But forcing Pakistani government, apparently supported by the country’s establishment, for an early, free and fair election will be a very difficult challenge,” he told Arab News. 

Pirzada said the PTI would need to continuously improvise its strategy by building contacts with labor unions, bar associations, trade and professional bodies to convey its message to the society. 

“[PTI needs to] make itself more acceptable to the western media, governments and public opinion to create an atmosphere for free, fair and transparent elections,” he said. 

Concurring with Pirzada, political analyst Hassan Askari said public rallies alone might not be able to force the government to call fresh polls. 

“Economic revival is one of the major issues at the moment for the Sharif government and if they failed to manage it in the coming weeks, the PTI could play with it to retain support in the public,” he said. 

Askari said the democracy and the system could not remain “fully functional,” if the PTI resigned provincial legislatures as well. 

“We are clearly in a political mess and politicians need to sit together to sort it out for the sake of people of Pakistan,” he added.