Ever since Reham Khan got married to Imran Khan, she has constantly been in the public eye. Some of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) members have had reservations about her marriage to their leader. As Reham was actively involved in the campaigning for the NA-19 and NA-246, some factions of the party blame her for the PTI’s losses in those constituencies. The party has lost all of the seats that they were contesting in the recent by-elections, regardless of whether Reham was involved in them or not. Imran has released a series of somewhat annoyed tweets about the incident — castigating the accusations against his wife at first and then proceeding to ban her from politics and PTI-related events. He insisted that Reham accompanied him to Karachi to “get women out to vote” and then said that she would not be attending PTI events, contesting elections or playing a role in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government in the future. These contradictory messages show that Imran is more concerned about avoiding further strife amongst his party members than he is about the marginalisation of women in Pakistani society and their underrepresentation in government.
It seems that he is so desperate to salvage his public image, or what is left of it after his Dharna movement met a disgraceful end, that he would scapegoat his own wife just to save face with the media. From her decision to cover her head after her marriage to Imran Khan to her allegations of domestic violence against her ex-husband, all aspects of Reham’s life have been shamelessly scrutinised by the media. No one deserves to have their activities scandalised so relentlessly just for being married to a political figure. Contrary to Imran’s rhetoric from the container top and his tweets claiming that his party had mobilised women and the youth, he has shown himself to be a patriarchal husband who believes he has the right to forbid his wife from being politically active. Although it makes sense for IK to assert that he is “opposed to nepotism” and that his family members will not receive special privileges, the fact that he gave in to internal pressure so easily and took a drastic turn from denouncing the baseless allegations against Reham to banning her from politics does not reflect well on him. The legions of PTI fans that attended IK’s protests rallies have lost faith in the party after the judicial commission concluded that the allegations of systematic rigging in the 2013 general elections were unsupported by evidence. The PTI cannot convince the public that Reham is responsible for their losses in NA-19 and other constituencies. Since Reham represents the female demographic of the PTI, banning her from politics will not help the cause of empowering women and facilitating their involvement in politics. *