Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan, party erased from election campaign

Imran Khan's PTI party faces a crackdown ahead of the election, with limited campaigning and media coverage.

Pakistani cricketing legend turned world leader Imran Khan is wildly popular in his constituency and ancestral homeland of Mianwali, but the political posters that line the streets do not bear his face and flags do not fly his colours.

A relentless crackdown widely attributed to Pakistan's powerful military has seen him and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party almost erased from the election campaign ahead of the vote.

Also Read | Imran Khan warns of further instability in Pakistan in absence of fair polls

"Our party workers are facing harassment, and I personally have received death threats," says 61-year-old Jamal Ahsan Khan, who is standing for PTI in Mianwali in place of his leader.

"Throughout my life, I have never witnessed an election as intense and threatening as this one."

Khan, currently in jail facing dozens of legal challenges, is barred from contesting elections on February 8 because of a graft conviction — cases he claims are politically motivated.

Across the country, PTI has been obstructed from holding rallies and the heavily censored media is restricted in its coverage of the opposition, pushing the party's campaign almost entirely online.