Krystal Kyle & Friends

We’re so excited to have Ryan Grim of The Intercept join us for this week’s episode of KK&F. Ryan has been reporting on Pakistan’s tumultuous political system for years and broke a bombshell story on US complicity in the jailing of the most popular politician in the country, former Prime Minister Imran Khan. That scoop turned Pakistani politics upside down. Against all odds however, Pakistanis just went to the polls and voted in an overwhelming wave, for Khan’s party. That clear message from the voters however didn’t stop the Pakistani military from attempting to steal the election in plain sight.

Here’s a portion of Ryan’s latest reporting on how it all went down:

“…what Pakistani voters managed to pull off over the past few days strains my imagination to its breaking point. I just can’t picture us doing it. 

Consider this: The leading opposition party, the populist PTI, led by legendary cricket star Imran Khan, was officially banned from the ballots by the courts. Its candidates were forced to run as independents instead. The candidates were prohibited from using the PTI’s party symbol – a cricket bat – on the ballot, a crucial marker in a country where some 40 percent of the population can’t read. Khan himself was jailed on bogus charges and ruled ineligible to run. Candidates who did file to run were abducted and tortured and pressured to withdraw. So were the new ones who then replaced them. Virtually the entire party leadership was imprisoned or exiled. Rallies were attacked and bombed; rank and file workers jailed and disappeared. Campaigning was basically impossible as candidates had to go into hiding. 

On election day Thursday, polling locations were randomly changed and the internet and cell service was taken down. Western media described the race as over, a fait accompli for the military’s preferred candidate Nawaz Sharif. And yet. 

And yet. Pakistani voters came out in such historic numbers that it caught the military off guard. The ISI — Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency — was prepared to steal a close election or nudge Sharif to his inevitable victory, but they were swamped by the tsunami they didn’t see coming. In a crucial mistake, they had allowed individual polling locations to release official vote tallies, which parties and TV broadcasters could then total up themselves. 

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What will happen now in Pakistan and how will the US government respond to election rigging so blatant, they couldn’t ignore it if they tried? You can join us for the full video episode, available to all paying subscribers on Friday evening. Then the audio episode will drop on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and more on Saturday evening. Tune in for the conversation!