Assassinations and Attempted Assassinations
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Ecuador Presidential Candidate Is Assassinated During Rally
The candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, had been vocal about ties between the state and organized crime, in a country roiled by violence tied to drug trafficking.Fernando Villavicencio was shot after speaking at a campaign rally in Quito, Ecuador.Karen Toro/ReutersA presidential candidate in Ecuador who had been outspoken about the link between organized crime and government officials was assassinated Wednesday evening at a political rally in the capital, just days before voting begins in an election that has been dominated by concerns over drug-related violence.The candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, a former journalist, was gunned down outside a high school in the capital, Quito, after speaking to young supporters. A suspect was killed in the melee that followed, and nine other people were shot, officials said.“There was nothing to be done, because they were shots to the head,” Carlos Figueroa, who worked for Mr. Villavicencio’s campaign and was at the rally, said of the candidate.Mr. Villavicencio, 59, was polling near the middle of an eight-person race. He was among the most vocal candidates on the issue of crime and state corruption.It was the first assassination of a presidential candidate in Ecuador and came less than a month after the mayor of Manta, a port city, was fatally shot during a public appearance. Ecuador, once a relatively safe nation, has been consumed by violence related to narco-trafficking in the last five years.“Outraged and shocked by the assassination,” President Guillermo Lasso wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, late Wednesday, blaming the death on “organized crime.”Mr. Lasso said the attackers had thrown a grenade into the street as a distraction as they tried to flee, but that it failed to explode. The national prosecutor’s office, also posting on the X platform, said that a suspect had been shot and apprehended amid crossfire with security forces, and had died shortly afterward. The office later said the authorities had carried out raids and detained six people in connection with the assassination.The nine other people shot included two police officers and a candidate for a National Assembly seat, according to the prosecutor’s office. There was no immediate information about the condition of the nine people; it was unclear late Wednesday night whether any of them had died.The killing is a major blow to a nation that was already suffering deep economic, social and political upheaval.“Electorally speaking, this year is the most violent in our history,” said Arianna Tanca, an Ecuadorean political scientist. “I think that what is going to change is the way we conceive of politics. I think that from now on it becomes a high-risk profession.”Ecuador, on South America’s western edge, witnessed an extraordinary transformation between 2005 and 2015 as millions of people rose out of poverty, riding the wave of an oil boom whose profits were poured into education, health care and other social programs.But more recently, the country has been dominated by an increasingly powerful narco-trafficking industry. Foreign drug mafias have joined forces with local prison and street gangs, unleashing a wave of violence unlike anything in the country’s recent history. Homicide rates are at record levels.Today, the violence is often horrific and public, meant to induce fear and exert control: There are regular reports of car bombings, beheadings and children being gunned down outside their schools.Complicating the situation, Mr. Lasso disbanded the country’s opposition-led National Assembly in May, a drastic move he made as he faced impeachment proceedings over accusations of embezzlement.The move, which is allowed under the Constitution, meant that new elections for president and legislative representatives would be held. The vote in which Mr. Villavicencio was supposed to compete is set for Aug. 20; a second round of voting will be held in October if no single candidate wins a clear victory.Investigators at the scene of the rally where Mr. Villavicencio was killed and others were wounded.Jose Jacome/EPA, via ShutterstockDiana Atamaint, the president of the National Electoral Council, said the election date would not be moved, citing constitutional and legal issues. In a televised statement early Thursday, Mr. Lasso declared a 60-day, nationwide state of emergency, a measure that involves the restriction of some civil liberties, and he said security forces would be deployed across the country. Such emergency declarations, meant for extraordinary circumstances, have become more common in recent years, but have done little to curtail Ecuador’s soaring violence.Mr. Lasso stressed, however, that the elections would proceed as scheduled. “This was a political crime, terrorism,” he said. “And there is no doubt that this assassination is an attempt to sabotage the electoral process. It is no coincidence this happened days before the first round of voting.”Mr. Villavicencio, who had worked as a journalist, activist and legislator, gained prominence as an opponent of correísmo, the leftist movement of former President Rafael Correa, who served from 2007 to 2017 and still holds major political sway in Ecuador. A presidential candidate who has Mr. Correa’s backing, Luisa González, is leading in the polls.Mr. Villavicencio wrote often about alleged corruption in the Correa government, which made him the subject of legal persecution and death threats. He briefly sought political asylum in Peru.In 2017, Mr. Villavicencio successfully ran for a seat in the National Assembly, where he served until the legislature was dissolved by Mr. Lasso.Mr. Correa, writing on the X platform late Wednesday, lamented Mr. Villavicencio’s death. “Ecuador has become a failed state,” he wrote. “My solidarity with his family and with all the families of the victims of violence.”Grace Jaramillo, an Ecuadorean professor of political science at the University of British Columbia who went to university with Mr. Villavicencio, remembered running against him in an election for student body president. He ran as a Trotskyist, and she represented a party called Democracy in Our House; both lost, to a student representing the Chinese Communist Party.“He was really a fighter all the time and very good at arguments,” Ms. Jaramillo said. “An arguer, a challenger. He used to love lively discussions.”After university, she said, Mr. Villavicencio became a union leader at Petroecuador, the country’s national oil company. Soon after Mr. Correa came to power, he started writing about government corruption as a political journalist.Ms. Jaramillo said she met with him at the time to give him advice. His house had been raided, and he had no money to fight the charges that had been brought against him, she said.“He was downtrodden. He felt bullied and diminished,” she added.But a few weeks ago, when she saw him on a trip to Quito, he was “really hopeful and enthusiastic,” Ms. Jaramillo said. “He was convinced that he could make it to the second round” of the presidential election.His death, she said, will be “a long-lasting memory of how difficult it is to fight corruption and to be safe at the same time.”Andrés R. Martínez More
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What to Know About Fernando Villavicencio, Who Was Assassinated in Ecuador
The presidential candidate who was assassinated on Wednesday had a long history in Ecuador’s public affairs, largely as an antagonist to those in power.Union leader. Muckraking journalist. Legislator. Presidential candidate. And now, assassin’s victim.Fernando Villavicencio, who was gunned down at a rally on Wednesday, had a long history in Ecuadorean public affairs, largely as an antagonist to those in power. He rose to prominence as a union leader at the state oil company, Petroecuador, and later played a crucial role in exposing a corruption scandal involving the administration of former President Rafael Correa.Mr. Correa, a socialist, was Ecuador’s longest-serving democratically elected president, leading the nation for a decade, through 2017. A commodities boom helped him lift millions out of poverty, but his authoritarian style and the corruption allegations that trailed him deeply divided the country.And Mr. Villavicencio was “always contesting the power” of Mr. Correa, according to Caroline Ávila, an Ecuadorean political analyst.As a journalist, Mr. Villavicencio obtained documents about a government surveillance program that he sent to WikiLeaks but eventually published himself. Some of his work led to death threats and charges that were widely criticized as politically motivated. He fled to Peru in 2017 to seek political asylum.There, he met with a friend from his undergraduate days at the Central University of Ecuador. He had no money to fight the charges against him, and had been forced to leave behind his wife and two young children.“He felt bullied and diminished,” said the friend, Grace Jaramillo, who is now a political scientist at the University of British Columbia.But later that year, Mr. Correa left office, and Mr. Villavicencio returned home. He won a seat in the National Assembly, where he served until May, when the legislature was dissolved by President Guillermo Lasso, who was facing impeachment proceedings over embezzlement accusations.Mr. Lasso’s move also triggered a presidential election, with a vote set for Aug. 20. For his presidential run, Mr. Villavicencio, 59, cast himself as the anticorruption candidate. He was representing the Build Ecuador Movement, a broad coalition, and also campaigned on issues like personal safety, in a country that has been consumed by violence related to narco-trafficking.Mr. Villavicencio was polling near the middle of an eight-person race, but remained hopeful about his chances, according to Ms. Jaramillo. But he was gunned down before voters could deliver their verdict.Soon after the killing, Mr. Correa, the former president, issued a lament on social media.“They have assassinated Fernando Villavicencio,” Mr. Correa wrote. “Ecuador has become a failed state.” More
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Who Is Imran Khan and Why Was He Arrested?
The former prime minister, who was ousted last year, was arrested on corruptions charges.Imran Khan, who was arrested on corruption charges on Tuesday, was elected as Pakistan’s prime minister in 2018 when he ran as a nationalist promising to fight corruption, revive the country’s struggling economy and maintain an independent foreign policy that distanced Pakistan from the United States.His arrest significantly escalated a political crisis in the country, raising the prospect of mass unrest by his supporters.What is his background?Born to an affluent family in Lahore and educated at Oxford University, Mr. Khan, 70, first rose to international prominence in the late 1970s on the cricket pitch. In 1995, he married a British heiress, Jemima Goldsmith.A year later, Mr. Khan tried to parlay his popularity from cricket — he had led Pakistan in 1992 to its only World Cup triumph — into a political career, establishing his own party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or the Movement for Justice. As a politician, he portrayed himself as a reformer offering an alternative to Pakistan’s entrenched political dynasties.How did he rise to power?For over a decade, Mr. Khan struggled to make political inroads and was mocked for his ambitions. By 2011, he began to gather political momentum, drawing hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis to his rallies. Many were energized by his populist, anticorruption and anti-American message.By then, Mr. Khan had embraced a pious form of Islam and sought to transform his personal image. In 2018, Mr. Khan got married for a third time, to his spiritual adviser, Bushra Bibi. (His marriage to Ms. Goldsmith had ended in divorce, and he was briefly married in 2015 to a broadcast journalist, Reham Khan.)After winning the backing of military leaders, Mr. Khan became prime minister in 2018. Many of his rivals accused the military of manipulating the election in his favor — an accusation Mr. Khan and the military have both denied. He ushered in a new foreign policy, moving away from the United States and closer to Russia and China.Why was he arrested?Mr. Khan’s relatively stable tenure began to unwind in 2021, as dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy came to a head and a dispute with the military over its leadership appeared to cost him its support. He was removed from office in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April of last year.Tensions further mounted in November, when he was wounded during a political rally after a man opened fire on his convoy. Aides called it an assassination attempt.Since being removed from office, Mr. Khan has faced a series of charges, including for terrorism and corruption, and he has repeatedly faced threats of arrest after failing to appear in court. He has also openly challenged the government and military, accusing them of conspiring against him.Mr. Khan was arrested on corruption charges on Tuesday connected to a case involving the transfer of land for Al-Qadir University, near Islamabad. Mr. Khan has been accused of granting favors to Malik Riaz Hussain, a real estate tycoon, with the university getting land and donations in return. More
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Your Tuesday Briefing: Marcos at the White House
Also, Russian attacks across Ukraine.President Biden greeted President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines at the White House.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMarcos at the White HouseThe president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., began a four-day visit to the U.S. with a meeting with President Biden in Washington yesterday. The trip is intended to send a message to China that Marcos plans to deepen his country’s relationship with the U.S.“We are facing new challenges and I couldn’t think of a better partner to have than you,” Biden told Marcos in the Oval Office. Biden added that the U.S. will “continue to support the Philippines’ military modernization.”Marcos’s trip comes days after the U.S. and the Philippines held their largest joint military exercises yet in the South China Sea, aimed at curbing China’s influence. The two countries signed a deal in February to allow the U.S. military to expand its presence in the Philippines. “It is only natural,” Marcos said in the Oval Office, that the Philippines “look to its sole treaty partner in the world to strengthen, to redefine, the relationship that we have and the roles that we play in the face of those rising tensions that we see now around the South China Sea and Asia Pacific.”U.S. outlook: The White House has been focusing on cultivating Marcos, the son of a dictator, as a regional ally since he took office 10 months ago. His predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, was more conciliatory toward China than his predecessors, and, at times, more confrontational with the U.S. Taiwan: The Philippines’ northernmost island is less than 100 miles from the self-governed island. An increased U.S. military presence could allow for a quick troop response in a war with China.China’s position: When the Chinese foreign minister visited the Philippines last month, he had a stern message: It was vital that the government in Manila, the capital, “properly handle issues” related to Taiwan and the South China Sea, and follow through on its earlier commitment not to choose sides.A tank near the front line of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region on Sunday.David Guttenfelder for The New York TimesFighting intensifies in UkraineBoth Russia and Ukraine reported escalating attacks in recent days, a sign that fighting was intensifying ahead of an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive. Russia launched a broad, predawn aerial assault across Ukraine yesterday, its second wide-ranging attack in just four days. Two people were killed and 40 wounded in Russian strikes on the central city of Pavlograd, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address.Ukraine said yesterday that it had launched four strikes on concentrations of Russian troops over the preceding 24 hours. Yesterday, a blast derailed a freight train in Russia, near the border, though a Russian official did not say who was responsible. Over the weekend, a series of explosions also occurred behind Russian lines.Timing: Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said on national television that the military was “reaching the finish line” in counteroffensive preparations.One complicating factor: Mud. It’s been raining for weeks in the region, and the ground is unusually wet. Ukraine’s new advanced weaponry is no match for the black, soupy soil.Alireza Akbari was lured from London to Iran in 2019 by a close friend.Khabar Online News AgencyA British spy in IranHe was a senior official in Iran, a trusted keeper of its defense secrets — and a British spy. A Times investigation shows how information shared by the official, Alireza Akbari, upended the world’s view of Iran’s nuclear program and led to his execution in January.Akbari, who was a senior military commander of the Revolutionary Guards, had open access to Iran’s inner circles of power and advised on key state policies. He also spied for Britain for nearly 16 years, according to Western intelligence officials. Intelligence sources told my colleagues Ronen Bergman and Farnaz Fassihi that Akbari revealed, among other things, the existence of Fordo, a uranium enrichment site hidden near Tehran.The revelations, which Britain shared with Israel and other Western intelligence agencies, shocked even those who closely monitored Iran. Fordo’s discovery proved critical in eliminating any doubt that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons and redrew the West’s military and cyber plans for countering the program. It also proved critical in persuading the world to impose sweeping sanctions against Iran.Details: Akbari was an unlikely spy. He displayed a fanatical allegiance to the ideals of the Islamic Republic and an unwavering support of Iran’s leaders, according to interviews with people who knew him. Other revelations: Iran also said he disclosed the identities of over 100 officials, most significantly Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the chief nuclear scientist whom Israel assassinated in 2020.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificA photo made available by the Royal Thai Police shows officers escorting the accused woman to a court in Bangkok.Royal Thai Police, via EPA, via ShutterstockThe police in Thailand charged a woman with nine murders. They found her with a bottle of cyanide after the sudden death of a traveling companion.Chris Hipkins, the prime minister of New Zealand, said that the country would “ideally” become independent one day — but that it had no plans to separate from the monarchy, The Guardian reported.Around the WorldProtestors in Marseille yesterday.Clement Mahoudeau/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOn May Day, some 800,000 French workers took to the streets across the country to protest the new pension plan.Paraguay elected Santiago Peña, a conservative economist, as president, resisting Latin America’s recent leftward shift.Thousands of people fleeing the war in Sudan have overwhelmed Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea, in their efforts to get to Saudi Arabia.Other Big StoriesU.S. regulators seized First Republic Bank and sold it to JPMorgan Chase. The sale has echoes of the recent banking crisis, but First Republic’s problems seem to be contained.“The Godfather of A.I.” left Google and warned of the technology’s risks: “It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things.”A bronze sculpture was erected in Oslo’s harbor to honor Freya, the walrus who was killed there last year.A Morning ReadJessica Chou for The New York TimesMore young men are getting perms. The hairstyle has changed since its 1980s heyday: Instead of ringlets and hair spray, the modern male perm — inspired by K-pop and TikTok — is tender and softer.ARTS AND IDEASKim Kardashian at the Met Gala last year.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesA Met Gala previewCelebrities are lining up to walk the red carpet at the Met Gala in New York. (It is scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. in New York, which is 5:30 a.m. in Hong Kong; 7:30 a.m. in Sydney.) The party is usually themed to the annual blockbuster show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. This year’s show, “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” pays homage to the imagination and creativity of the longtime designer of Chanel, Fendi and his namesake line. (Lagerfeld died in 2019.)Given the theme, you can expect to see a lot of vintage designer dresses on the runway this year, which could make this the most sustainable Met Gala ever. Vanessa Friedman, our fashion editor, told us that she hoped it would be “a return to more toned-down elegance after years when guests’ clothes have gotten more and more costumey, the better to go more and more viral.”Among the many celebrities attending the celebration, Gala watchers will be on the lookout for one in particular: There’s speculation that Lagerfeld’s white Birman cat (and rumored heir), Choupette, who has her own nanny and Instagram account, may make an appearance.For more: Take our Lagerfeld quiz.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookArmando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.Air-fryer sweet potatoes are faster and less oily than their deep-fried counterparts.What to ReadThe first issue of “It Happened Online,” our new newsletter about the internet, looks at the fate of Twitter’s check marks.What to Watch“Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” which adapts Judy Blume’s groundbreaking novel about puberty, is a Times critics pick.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Very (five letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. My colleagues won the top environmental journalism prize in the Fetisov Journalism Awards for coverage of Congo’s peatlands.“The Daily” is on the fight over the U.S. debt ceiling.I always love hearing from you. Please write to me at briefing@nytimes.com with any thoughts. More
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High-Ranking Election Official Is Killed in Myanmar
A rebel group has claimed responsibility for the attack on an official for the military junta, which comes amid cascading violence on both sides.A top election official for Myanmar’s military junta has been assassinated by bicycle-riding gunmen from a rebel group, which accused him of being complicit in “oppressing and terrorizing” the public. It is the latest in a series of high-profile killings targeting a military that has escalated attacks on civilians.The official, Sai Kyaw Thu, a retired lieutenant colonel who served as deputy director general of the Union Election Commission, was fatally shot Saturday afternoon after driving his wife, a doctor, to her job at a hospital in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city.A resistance group calling itself “For the Yangon” claimed responsibility for the killing. A spokesman for the group, who gave his name only as Sky for fear of retaliation, said Mr. Sai Kyaw Thu was targeted in part because he testified last year against the country’s ousted civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and the ousted president, U Win Myint, at their trial for election fraud. Both were convicted and sentenced to the maximum three years in prison on that charge.A security camera outside a Yangon pharmacy captured the attack as two men rode up on one bicycle, jumped off in the middle of the street and began firing their handguns at a black sport utility vehicle. The car ran over the bicycle and continued down the road and out of camera range.The two gunmen, who both wore hats and face masks, then returned to the bike. One man picked it up, but it was apparently damaged; putting their guns back into shoulder bags, they fled on foot.The video of the shooting, as well as a photo of the vehicle after it had crashed into a power pole, were posted on a pro-military Telegram channel called Myanmagone, which also provided details of the killing. Mr. Sky, the rebel spokesman, told The New York Times that the video and photo depicted the assassination and its aftermath.The military junta, which seized power in a coup more than two years ago, is facing growing armed resistance in many parts of the country from pro-democracy forces and ethnic rebel groups that have long fought for autonomy.A rebel group in Myanmar this year.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEven in urban areas where the military has established control, resistance fighters have carried out several high-profile assassinations, including that of a retired brigadier general outside his Yangon home in September.The military has responded in recent months with an increasing number of atrocities, including the beheading, disembowelment or dismemberment of rebel fighters, as well as attacks on civilians.In March, soldiers massacred 22 civilians, including three monks, at a monastery in Shan State. And in April, a military jet bombed a gathering in Sagaing Region, killing at least 170, including 38 children. It was the single deadliest attack on civilians since the coup on Feb. 1, 2021.In an attempt to legitimize its authority, the junta established the military-led State Administration Council to run the country and announced that it would hold elections this year. No date has been set.“Sai Kyaw Thu is not only a retired military officer, but he is currently a key player in the military council’s illegal election,” said Mr. Sky, the rebel spokesman. “Together with the terrorist military council, he was involved in oppressing and terrorizing the people.”Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, which won landslide victories in the three elections it was allowed to take part in, was dissolved in March by the election commission after the party announced it would not participate in a sham vote and did not register.Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, 77, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, was arrested on the morning of the coup and has been sentenced to a total of 33 years in prison on a wide range of charges, including corruption, inciting public unrest and election fraud. Mr. Win Myint, 71, is serving 12 years on similar charges.Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in 2018. Sai Kyaw Thu, who was killed this weekend, testified last year against her at her trial for election fraud.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBoth leaders have denied the charges. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s defenders have said that the charges against her were manufactured to prevent her from holding public office again. At the time of the 2020 vote, independent election observers said they did not see evidence of fraud.It is unclear what Mr. Sai Kyaw Thu testified at the election fraud trial, since the proceedings were held behind prison walls and closed to the public.A colleague at the election commission who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation said in an interview that he was not surprised Mr. Sai Kyaw Thu had been targeted, given his willingness to testify against the country’s civilian leaders. Because Mr. Sai Kyaw Thu had worked at the election commission since before the coup, the colleague said, he was in a position to testify about the handling of the 2020 elections.The Myanmagone channel said that Mr. Sai Kyaw Thu was shot five times, including in the neck, and the rebel spokesman, Mr. Sky, said that he was alone in the car when he was killed.The junta’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, did not respond to calls from The Times seeking comment.Mr. Sky warned that resistance forces planned to target other top officials associated with the junta.“We have already received a variety of information about people in senior positions in the military council,” he said. “We plan to take care of them as soon as possible. We will not be complacent toward anyone who is oppressing the public, including high-ranking officers.” More
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Why Imran Khan Can’t Outplay Pakistan’s Military
Imran Khan is a cornered tiger.After surviving an assassination attempt on Nov. 3 while leading a protest march, Mr. Khan accused Shehbaz Sharif, who succeeded him as prime minister of Pakistan, Rana Sanaullah, the interior minister, and a third man of conspiring to assassinate him. In a significant breach in civil-military relations, Mr. Khan claimed that the third man was a major general in the Inter-Services Intelligence, the dreaded spy agency of Pakistan’s military, which supported his own rise to power.The saga of Mr. Khan’s embrace of the military and his fallout and confrontation with the generals is a reminder of the limits of power exercised by civilian politicians in Pakistan, where the military has ruled directly for 33 years and always been the power behind the throne.Mr. Khan took office as prime minister in August 2018 and was deposed by a no-confidence vote in Parliament in April of this year. Rakishly handsome, utterly vain and stubborn at 70, Mr. Khan hasn’t reconciled with his loss of power.For several months now he has been discrediting the democratic process, blaming his ouster on an American-led foreign conspiracy and attacking Mr. Sharif’s government as an “imported government” full of “thieves.” He commenced on Oct. 28 an energetic roadshow across Pakistan demanding immediate national elections, which aren’t due for a year.Mr. Khan’s own legend, the story of the cricket captain of steely determination who won his greatest sporting victory — the 1992 Cricket World Cup — with a team almost everybody wrote off, plays a big role in how he persists in politics. He had asked his team to play like a “cornered tiger,” and they ferociously fought their way to victory.In politics, Mr. Khan’s legend and grit weren’t enough. He founded the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice), or the P.T.I., in 1996 and spent a decade and a half charging quixotically at electoral windmills, barely managing to win a single seat in Pakistan’s 342-member National Assembly.Many Pakistani analysts believe the military saw that Mr. Khan’s rise would be beneficial in reducing the dominance of the two major political parties, which revolved in and out of power: former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (inherited by her widower and her son after her death) and the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz).By the early 2010s, Mr. Khan aligned with Pakistan’s military and welcomed power brokers from older political parties into his. He reinvented himself into a populist rallying against corruption and misrule, promising a New Pakistan — a welfare state inspired by the early days of Islam. And he raged against American drone war in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, earlier known as the North-West Frontier Province, and the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.He emerged as a political force after the general elections of 2013. His party won the third largest number of seats, but Nawaz Sharif got the largest number of votes and formed the government. Three years later, in 2016, Nawaz Sharif — the older brother of the current prime minister — fell out with the military over national security policy and the military began to undermine him.Since shortly after the birth of Pakistan in 1947, the generals have ensured the removal of intransigent politicians attempting to challenge the military either with a coup or with facilitating the election of obedient, chosen ones.Mr. Khan played his role by ferociously accusing the older Mr. Sharif and his family of corruption and seeking his removal — not through elections but through judicial investigations and prosecution. After Mr. Sharif’s dismissal on corruption charges in 2017, a pliable judiciary disqualified him from holding public office and imprisoned him for hiding assets and not being “honest” despite no convincing evidence that he abused his office for personal gain.In the 2018 elections, Mr. Khan’s party was seen as the military’s favorite. Independent press was gagged, and there were allegations of rigging and “copious evidence” that Pakistan’s military interfered to help Mr. Khan win. In his first three years in office, Mr. Khan spoke gleefully about being on the “same page” with the Pakistan Army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, and helped him with a second three-year term as the army chief.Mr. Khan’s tenure was defined by a disregard for civil liberties and independent press, the hounding of his opponents and ignoring procedures of parliamentary democracy. He failed to improve the economy, inflation rose and the International Monetary Fund halted funding after his government refused to stick to its commitments.His foreign policy didn’t fare any better. Pakistan’s most important relations, with the United States, Saudi Arabia and China, remained icy during his tenure. President Biden didn’t even make a customary phone call to Mr. Khan after the start of his term. Projects in the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor remained more or less stalled.In February 2019, Mr. Khan welcomed the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman on his first visit outside the Middle East after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. In September 2019, Mr. Khan announced plans to team up with Malaysia and Turkey — Prince Mohammed’s nemesis after the Khashoggi murder — to set up a television network to counter Islamophobia and hold a summit of leaders of Muslim countries in Malaysia in December. The plans soured the relationship with Saudi Arabia, a major financial backer, forcing Mr. Khan to pull out.Apart from his failures of governance, in October 2021, Mr. Khan committed the cardinal sin of interfering in the military’s personnel decisions. He sought to prevent the appointment of a new chief for the I.S.I., as Mr. Khan reportedly favored the continuation of the incumbent spy chief, Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed.The military establishment zealously guards its prerogative to promote and post officers at every level. General Bajwa replaced General Hameed with a new spy chief. Mr. Khan, who as prime minister appointed the spy chief in consultation with the army chief, showed his displeasure by taking three long weeks before notifying the appointment.Pakistani press was gripped with feverish speculation that Mr. Khan wanted to appoint General Hameed as the army chief after General Bajwa’s upcoming retirement in late November 2022. Mr. Khan denied the rumors, but the damage was done. Mr. Khan and the army chief were not on the same page anymore. In March, in the lead-up to the vote of no confidence, a spokesman for General Bajwa publicly declared that the army has “nothing to do with politics.”Pakistan got the message: Mr. Khan might still be prime minister, but he was not under the protective canopy of the army and the intelligence services anymore. The coalition of opposition parties moved to oust him and Mr. Khan lost crucial allies and legislators of his own party. A vote of no confidence was moved in the national assembly.In April, Mr. Khan tried to avoid the confidence vote — which decides the fate of a government — by dissolving the national assembly, but the Supreme Court declared his actions unconstitutional and ordered the vote be held. Mr. Khan didn’t have a majority in parliament and was ousted.Mr. Sharif, the leader of the opposition coalition, took over as prime minister and moved briskly to repair long fractured ties with the military. And in a first, after Mr. Khan’s ouster, his supporters — urban youth and sections of the middle class — who have traditionally been strong supporters of Pakistan’s military, clashed with the police, vandalized property and tried to forcibly enter a military cantonment area.Mr. Khan has resumed his cry for immediate elections with the halo of a martyr. But he is quickly conceding that the military will always dominate Pakistan’s politics and told the newspaper The Dawn that “using their constructive power can get this country out of institutional collapse.”He has also dialed back his allegations of an American conspiracy behind his ouster, waking up to the importance the military attaches to its relationship with Washington. The new tack suggests that he is happy with military interference in politics as long as it is on his behalf.On Thursday Prime Minister Sharif appointed Lt. Gen Syed Asim Munir as the new army chief, who will take over after Gen. Bajwa retires on Tuesday. General Munir had clashed with Mr. Khan during his tenure as the I.S.I. chief in 2019.Yet Mr. Khan’s populist messaging is gaining wider traction. Pakistan’s economy is faltering. Inflation is higher than 25 percent. Recent floods have affected more than 30 million people, and caused damage and economic losses of around $30 billion. Pakistan needs stability and improved governance, but Mr. Khan’s ambitions are bound to increase political turmoil.Abbas Nasir is a columnist and former editor of the newspaper The Dawn in Pakistan.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More
