Pakistan’s former premier Imran Khan faces a crucial popularity test as he contests in seven of the eight by-elections on Sunday, looking to build momentum for his campaign to pressure the six-month-old government into calling an early national vote.
The seats fell vacant after all 131 lawmakers from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party resigned from parliament’s lower house in April after he was ousted from power through a no-confidence vote. Elections to those seats are being held in phases.
If he does win all the seats as he expects, the former leader will have to resign from all but one, and elections for those will have to happen again. However, Khan — a flamboyant former cricket star — sees the vote as another show of his mass appeal after his party won a majority of 20 seats in a similar by-election in July in the most populous province of Punjab.
