Imran Khan’s Legal Cases Put Him in Place, But PTI Uses AI, ‘Virtual Jalsa’ to Keep Poll Campaign Going

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has been jailed for leaking state secrets and illegally selling state gifts. But despite the Pakistani government creating legal hurdles for him, the cricketer-turned-politician is “secretly” campaigning for the February 8 general elections.

His party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is using generative AI (artificial intelligence), which creates footage of Khan reading speeches from his prison cell, urging supporters to vote on the election day. PTI has also organised online rallies on social media that are being watched by thousands of people at a time, as claimed by GeoTV, quoting YouTube data.

How PTI is Playing with AI, Social Media

In an interview with Al Jazeera, PTI’s social media lead based in Chicago, Jibran Ilyas, said virtual rallies were the only way Khan could reach out to people after a ban on him was imposed. On December 17, 2023, PTI held its first virtual rally in Pakistan using a platform called StreamYard, which reached out to five million audiences.

Knowing that Pakistan’s people are keen on listening to Khan, PTI has created an AI to generate his audio clips, which are being played at the virtual rallies.

The four-minute-long speech had clips from past speeches, video montages and handwritten notes Khan had sent from jail to Ilyas and his team, as told to Al Jazeera.

Khan’s post on X encouraged maximum number of people to come out and vote.

PTI leaders reportedly are also using WhatsApp channel to spread information, and then hold short quick meetings.

“When you have over 60% voters in the age bracket of 18 to 45, you have to look at ways to engage them. This is why we have such active presence on platforms such as TikTok, YouTube…,” the Chicago-based strategist said, as quoted by Al Jazeera.

But a significant portion of Pakistan population lives in desert, port cities and mountains where door-to-door canvassing works, and the ruling government is making tough for PTI workers and supporters to campaign.

Raids, Legal Troubles Mount

The Punjab police raided PTI election offices, besides allegedly harassing women workers. The police broke into a portion of the house and asked the servants to produce the documents of nomination of polling agents. They entered the house on a truck, and damaged the doors and furniture of the house, according to Dawn.

A PTI member, requesting anonymity, said, “Police officials threatened the PTI members, who were reaching there to attend the general body meeting, and told them not to take part in any political activity if they don’t want to face consequences,” he said. “Later, members attended the meeting virtually,” the representative said.

In Multan, veteran politician Javed Hashmi said the police raided his house in Makhdoom Rasheed area and picked up his son-in-law, grandson and a servant. His son-in-law Shahid Bahar Hashmi is a PTI-backed candidate.

The PTI was prohibited from using cricket bat as election symbol, and television stations were barred from running Khan’s speeches.

The following are the main cases registered against Khan.

Secrets Case: Khan was convicted for making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington in 2022. The case was also called ‘Cipher’ case. He was sent to 10 years in prison.

Gifts Case: Khan was previously sentenced to three years in prison in August by a court for selling state gifts worth more than 140 million Pakistani rupees ($501,000) during this premiership in 2018-22. On Wednesday, an anti-graft court sent Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, to 14 years in jail in the same case, called Toshkahana or state treasury case.

Land Bribery Case: Pakistani authorities have accused Khan and his wife of receiving land as bribe through Al Qadir Trust. The land worth up to 7 billion Pakistani rupees ($25 million) was received from a property developer charged with money laundering in Britain.

Abetting Violence: Khan has been indicted under Pakistan’s anti-terrorism law in connection with violence against the military during his brief arrest in Al Qadir case in May.

(With inputs from Agencies)