News
April 18, 2025
Battle for Diaspora: Pakistan Gov’t Woos Expats to Break Imran Khan Clout?
By Abid Hussain
Islamabad: In the cavernous hall of the Jinnah Convention Centre in Islamabad, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif hailed the country’s diaspora as the “pride of the nation,” lauding them for their “unmatched contribution” to the country they have left.
And it wasn’t just talk. Speaking to an audience of more than 1,000 expatriates who had gathered to participate in the Overseas Pakistanis Convention on April 15, Sharif also promised a range of benefits that he said his government would launch to help them.
These include special courts for overseas Pakistanis so their legal disputes are resolved faster than they would be in the country’s notoriously slow judicial system. Quotas in educational institutions, faster immigration procedures at airports and tax benefits are also pledged. Sharif also said the government would award 15 eminent Pakistani expatriates every year.
“I believe there is no doubt that the 10 million Pakistanis who live across the world have earned their good reputation with their hard work and promoted Pakistan’s name,” Sharif said in his speech.
But many experts believe that the government’s bouquet of assurances to the diaspora is more than just an innocent outreach effort: it’s also a political move in a battle for the support of overseas Pakistanis with former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party is widely believed to enjoy vast support among the country’s diaspora, which in turn, wins it influence in Western capitals, shaping how those nations view Islamabad and its deep political divides.
Now, analysts say, the Sharif government is trying to break Khan’s grip over Pakistanis abroad.
“The overseas Pakistani summit seemed to have two key objectives, to counter the influence and popularity jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan enjoys among the diaspora, and to encourage the community abroad to invest in Pakistan,” Maleeha Lodhi, former Pakistani ambassador to the United States told Al Jazeera.
Many PTI supporters living overseas enjoy positions of influence in those countries, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States, with nearly 1.6 million and 700,000 Pakistan-origin citizens residing there, respectively.
Former PM Khan, who was ousted from power in April 2022 through a parliamentary vote of no confidence, has been in jail since August 2023 on various charges.
His party has faced a sweeping crackdown and alleges that the results of the general elections in February 2024 were heavily manipulated, claiming that their mandate was “stolen”. The government and the country’s powerful military have rejected those allegations, but they have found resonance among many in Pakistan – and outside it.
These allegations helped drive lobbying efforts, particularly in the US, which led Congress to hold a hearing on the “future of democracy” in Pakistan in March last year.
That hearing was prompted by bipartisan calls for then-President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to scrutinize Pakistan’s controversial elections.
A few months later in October, more than 60 Democratic Party legislators urged Biden to pressure Islamabad to secure Khan’s release.
In fact, many within PTI believe that following Trump’s inauguration , the US president, who enjoyed warm ties with Khan during his first term, might intervene and help secure the former PM’s release, thanks to lobbying by the diaspora.
Arif Ansar, chief strategist of the Washington, DC-based strategic advisory firm PoliTact, acknowledged the effectiveness of the diaspora’s lobbying .
“The diaspora has been very effective in its lobbying efforts, and this has influenced the establishment to manage its relations with the diaspora. It wants to engage them and incentivize the ties as opposed to taking an adversarial role,” Ansar told Al Jazeera. The “establishment” is a euphemism for the military in Pakistan.
However, the analyst added that it was also possible that the government was trying to demonstrate that the diaspora was not monolithically aligned with the PTI.
“There are many different segments, and PTI is not the only one representing the diaspora,” he said. The government, he added, appeared eager to “build a new narrative”. – Al Jazeera
Courtesy Al Jazeera
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