Pakistan After Imran Khan

Grand Tamasha

On April 11, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted from office, having suffered defeat in a dramatic no confidence vote in the national assembly. Soon after, Shehbaz Sharif—former chief minister of Punjab and brother of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif—was sworn into office as his replacement, capping a dizzying few weeks of political intrigue.

To make sense of the latest developments in Pakistan, including what they mean for India, this week Milan is joined on the show by Aqil Shah. Aqil is the Wick Cary associate professor in the Department of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma and a visiting scholar in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Aqil is the author of The Army and Democracy: Military Politics in Pakistan, one of the best guides to civil-military relations in Pakistan.

Milan and Aqil discuss Imran Khan’s dramatic fall from grace, the challenges facing the new government, and the country’s complicated civil-military power balance. Plus, they talk about what these developments mean for India and Pakistan’s frosty bilateral relationship.

1. Aqil Shah, “The Shambolic End of Imran Khan,” Foreign Affairs, April 15, 2022.
2. Aqil Shah, “Pakistan’s ‘Moderate Taliban’ Strategy Won’t Hold Up—For Anyone,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 30, 2021.
3. Aqil Shah, “Pakistan: Voting Under Military Tutelage,” Journal of Democracy 30, no. 1 (2019): 128-142.