Lahore, Pakistan (CU)_ Imran Khan, the former prime minister of Pakistan and chairman of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), took only a few minutes to break the internet and most likely set a new world record on Twitter. More than 446,000 individuals from all across the world conversed with Imran through Spaces, Twitter’s audio live function. The average number of concurrent listeners was 165,000. The conversation was also live-streamed on other platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, with thousands of viewers watching live.
However, for PTI fans in Pakistan and abroad, the highlight was being able to express their support and worry to their leader. A concerned supporter formally initiated the hour-long session by asking, “How are you doing?”. In response to a query concerning a threat to his life at the Lahore rally, Imran said that he would go regardless of the circumstances. He said, “Minar-e-Pakistan [Lahore] is a special place because the Pakistan resolution was presented there. Indian Muslims decided that they wanted a separate homeland. We will also launch our freedom movement there. I believe a record number of people will come”.
The PTI leader stated that he did not anticipate such large numbers rallying in his support following the ouster of his administration earlier this month. He added, “I had expected just five per cent of what actually came out. When I saw people I was so happy because I saw a nation emerging … for the first time I saw where we should have been 75 years ago”. The former Prime Minister described the demonstrations by Pakistanis abroad as “unprecedented,” adding that conspiracies would no longer work now that people had become politically informed.
In the wake of the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) crackdown on social media activists running anti-state campaigns and allegations that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) used bots to trend these campaigns, the PTI chairman asked his supporters not to speak out against the Pakistan’s armed forces. He stated, “Never ever speak against the army. If we didn’t have the army, we wouldn’t have survived. The army is more necessary than Imran Khan”.
Imbran stated that Pakistan’s opponents were assaulting the army and that both Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari, while in office, weakened the army. He asked, “What were Dawn Leaks and Memogate?”. Regarding future strategy and his preference for electables over PTI core workers, the chairman stated that they distributed tickets to the wrong individuals and that he would favor ideological workers over electables this time.
