Pakistan elections 2024: Can Imran Khan, Prisoner No 804, win the elections from jail?

Imran Khan as Pakistan’s cricket captain had the knack to win matches from seemingly impossible positions. And he hopes to replicate this habit — this time, in the political field even as he faces multiple jail terms and is barred from contesting office.

Ahead of the crucial 8 February election, many are asking: Can Imran Khan, Prisoner no: 804, do the impossible and lead his party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) to victory in the national polls? Well, at least he is trying.

The charismatic 71-year-old is doing everything in his power to ensure his party’s win — from using AI to social media.

Many convictions of Imran Khan

Before we delve into the topic of how Imran Khan is working hard to ensure his party’s success from behind bars, let’s take a closer look at what led him there. Last Saturday (3 February), former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan and wife, Bushra Bibi were sentenced to seven years in prison for their unlawful marriage. This was Khan’s third court conviction against him this week.

Prior to that, on 31 January, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison in the Toshakhana case. The verdict also stated that Khan would be disqualified from holding public office for the next 10 years.

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And on 30 January, Khan, along with his former Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, were handed down 10-year prison sentences in the cipher case — for leaking state secrets.

One thing is certain that it puts Imran Khan out of the race for the national elections, which are to take place on 8 February.

Khan’s social media campaigns

He may be currently lodged at Adiala jail in Rawalpindi, but Imran Khan, it appears, is very active on his social media channels, campaigning for his various candidates. The PTI’s official X, Instagram and TikTok pages each have millions of followers, more than the combined strength of the other two parties — the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz).

Moreover, Imran Khan is the only leader in Pakistan to have an account on each of these platforms and he is using them to the best of his capability to ensure that the party’s message is going direct into people’s hands. In fact, when Imran Khan joined TikTok last year in July, he acquired a whopping three million supporters in just 36 hours.

The Imran Khan-led PTI has been holding digital rallies on TikTok to garner support and whip up voter sentiment for the party and the former Pakistan prime minister. Ramsha Jahangir, a technology journalist, told AFP, “They have apps, they have online speeches, they’ve done a Tiktok jalsa (gathering) which is unprecedented, at least in Pakistan, so they have a way of innovating and it’s always been the case.”

On Imran Khan’s Facebook page, there’s a chatbot that provides information about local candidates for the 8 February polls.

That’s not all. The Imran Khan-led PTI, who was stripped of their election symbol — the bat — has developed a website where voters can put in their constituency and discover their PTI-backed candidate’s symbol.

AI to Khan’s rescue

Khan and his supporters have also been using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to campaign ahead of the polls. The party is using this technology to produce Khan’s speeches, with the Times of India reporting that notes are being smuggled out of prison by his lawyers. They are then being converted into speeches using AI and broadcasted on large screens at public rallies or being streamed online, giving voters the impression that the PTI chief is addressing them from behind bars.

”میرے پاکستانیو، اگلے تین دن آپ نے اپنے رشتے داروں اور محلے داروں تک میرے امیدواروں کے نام اور ان کے انتخابی نشان پہنچانے کی ذمہ دادی لینی ہے“

3rd authorised AI Generated Voice message of Founding Chairman PTI Imran Khan pic.twitter.com/FYwcqwwNti

— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) February 4, 2024

In another AI-generated speech, the 71-year-old was heard saying, “If you come out in large numbers, there is no way we can lose. Do not fear anyone.”

In December 2023, his party had even released a voice clone of their leader to give impassioned speeches on his behalf. And the party claims that this is the first time ever in Pakistan that AI is being used for political purposes.

Islamabad-based digital rights activist, Usama Khilji, told The Nation, “I thought it was a pretty effective way of circumventing the persecution that the political party has been facing. “Now you have a dude who’s in jail addressing everyone through AI because you can, so I thought it was pretty innovative.”

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Challenges galore

Despite these efforts, a win for the PTI seems a herculean task. Many of the party’s known faces are in hiding, alleging that false cases are being filed against them. Moreover, the party alleges censorship by the country’s poll watchdog — banning its posters and the complete ban of Imran Khan on the airwaves.

Poll pundits and analysts also believe that despite their strong presence online and running campaigns on social media will have a limited reach. This is because of Pakistan’s social media usage. As Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Centre think tank in Washington told the BBC, “Only about 30 per cent of Pakistan’s population are active social media users. So that suggests that as good as the PTI is at getting the word out on social media there will be inherent limits to their reach with their online campaigning.

There’s also the risk of multiple candidates contesting from each constituency, which could lead to a PTI vote being split further. Moreover, one analyst pointed out that should candidates supported by PTI emerge victorious, they aren’t obligated to remain with the party and could align with any other group post the results.

It will be interesting to see what happens on 8 February as the votes are counted. Will Imran Khan be able to bowl out the opposing parties from prison?

With inputs from agencies