In Pakistan, former Prime Minister Imran Khan—who, if declared eligible, would be seeking a return to office in the 2024 elections—faces numerous allegations of corruption and other financial impropriety. More than 200 cases have been filed against him in Pakistan’s courts, and he continues to sit behind bars in Adiala Jail. Yet these legal troubles have had little effect on Khan’s popularity in pre-election polls. Part of the reason, as I discussed in my last post, is that Pakistan’s long history of politicized anticorruption enforcement has left Pakistanis deeply apathetic about corruption allegations and weary of their frequently cynical use. But Khan has also been unusually successful in convincing the public that the charges against him are politically motivated. What accounts for his ability to rally the public to his side when similarly situated Pakistani politicians have failed before him? The answer may lie in Khan’s concerted focus on what he claims is evidence of American meddling.

In suggesting that the corruption allegations against him are the product of a conspiracy by his domestic political opponents and a shadowy “deep state,” Khan is following part of the standard playbook for populist politicians accused of corruption. We have seen that move used time and time again, often effectively, to turn public sentiment against anticorruption investigations and to weaken the legitimacy of the institutions charged with carrying them out. (Cases abound: Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, Indira Gandhi in India, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Jacob Zuma in South Africa, and Donald Trump in the United States, among others.) Khan’s rhetoric has exhibited many classic features of this standard populist rhetoric. He has argued that the cases against him are merely ploys by rival parties to divert attention from their own misdeeds, initiated due to his willingness to disrupt the “dirty” status quo. He has lambasted the military establishment, suggesting that they have personal vendettas against him for his attempts to exert civilian control on the country’s armed forces. In short, Khan, like many other populists accused of corruption, claims that he is being persecuted by powerful and hidden forces.

What’s distinctive about Khan’s anti-anticorruption populism, however, is his incessant focus on not only the “deep state” and domestic opponents, but on foreign conspiracy.

Khan has succeeded in part because of his skillful exploitation of widespread anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. He has lampooned the ever-growing list of corruption charges against him as a politicized campaign spearheaded by the United States, in collaboration with Khan’s domestic political opponents and the military. Indeed, Khan and other members of his party (the PTI) have repeatedly claimed that external powers were instrumental in greenlighting his persecution under the facade of anticorruption.

That tale began during the lead-up to Khan’s ouster as the Prime Minister in a no-confidence vote in April 2022. During that time, Khan accused the United States of encouraging opposition parties to remove him out of anger at his trip to Moscow during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After his removal, he continued to insist that his ouster was a “coup” orchestrated by the Americans, who had a vested interest in keeping pro-Ukraine factions in office. He has since made much of diplomatic communications that he claims demonstrate American pressure for a change at the top in Pakistan, theatrically waving around the implicated documents at massive rallies organized by his party. In this, Khan’s rhetoric is more analogous to that of Jacob Zuma in South Africa over the last few years than of the other populists listed above. Zuma, too, blames his corruption-related troubles on conspiracies allegedly hatched by the CIA and other foreign intelligence agencies, though he has offered even less evidence than Khan to back up these claims.

True or not, Khan’s story has resonated with many Pakistanis: A poll last year found that nearly half of respondents believed his claims that his ouster was orchestrated by the United States. This may be in part because Khan’s rhetoric taps into longstanding resentment against American foreign policy in the country, particularly with regard to the Afghanistan war’s effects on Pakistani national security, continued drone strikes in northwestern Pakistan, and high-profile public scandals, such as a 2011 incident on a busy Lahore street in which a CIA contractor shot two Pakistanis whom he alleged were trying to rob him.

In short, while Khan benefits from deep public cynicism about allegations of corruption in Pakistan (as explored in my last post), and while his public support has been bolstered by the lack of due process afforded him and jailed PTI activists, he has also influenced public opinion by combining the classic populist narratives of domestic intrigue and judicial politicization with the story that he is being persecuted by an unpopular foreign power. Ultimately, this has allowed him to turn the public eye away from which state gifts he sold or the ethics of his real estate dealings, and towards the forces––both domestic and foreign––conjuring up these charges. As Khan’s case and that of Zuma before him illustrate, claims of foreign interference can have a significant impact in shaping local perceptions of corruption.