Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan attends a session of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (AP) Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan attends a session of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (AP)

Written by Salman Masood

Words fly around Pakistani parliament sessions at a furious pitch and pace. So when a senior leader declared one particular phrase off-limits, it was inevitable that a war of many more words would begin.

That phrase is “selected prime minister,” and when it has been applied by opposition politicians and activists to Prime Minister Imran Khan, the implication has been clear: that his election victory last year was engineered by the country’s powerful military, which muzzled the press and targeted opposing parties for months ahead of the vote.

After nearly a year of hearing that phrase brandished during debates in the National Assembly, the deputy speaker of the body, Qasim Khan Suri, had evidently had enough. Declaring that it was an insult to call Khan, his party chief, a “selected” leader, he banned the phrase outright during the session Sunday.

“This is a house of elected representatives!” he thundered. “No one will use this expression from now on!”

He was wrong, of course. It did not take long at all Monday for someone to push the issue: Marriyum Aurangzeb, an opposition lawmaker, was soon reprimanded by Suri for continuing to describe Khan as “selected.” Afterward, she took a different tack, referring to the prime minister as “hand-picked.”

Whether they are defying the order, digging into the thesaurus, or defending the ban as proper, lawmakers are now making the order itself the focus of debate.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, is questioning whether it is possible for one official to ban words in parliament at all. Zardari is the lawmaker most widely credited with first using the phrase to describe Khan last year and it has picked up resonance as Khan and his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, have struggled.

“Because of the prime minister’s ego, you have banned this word,” Zardari said Monday, calling the move censorship. “What kind of freedom is this that members of National Assembly cannot express themselves on the floor of the house?”

Another opposition lawmaker, Hina Parvez Butt, filed a resolution in the Punjab provincial assembly condemning the deputy speaker’s move.

Khan became prime minister last year after running a campaign rooted in fighting corruption and criticizing former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Sharif was ejected from his post by the Supreme Court on corruption accusations and then was sentenced to prison just two weeks before the election, in July.

Sharif and other political leaders have accused the military of denying them a level playing field in those elections, paving the way for Khan’s win. Some members of Sharif’s party accused the military of pressuring them to change parties.

The military, which remains popular among many Pakistanis, continues to reject the accusations of meddling in politics. And the prime minister’s supporters insist that his party won elections on its own power.

Aliya Hamza Malik, a lawmaker with PTI, said in an interview that calling Khan “selected” was unfair and unjustified.

“Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf vote bank increased from 7.6 million votes in 2013 general elections to 16.8 million votes in last year’s elections,” Malik said, referring to her party. “By using this expression, the opposition is discrediting not only the parliament but also the people of Pakistan.”

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