How Imran Khan is campaigning from jail in Pakistan: AI and covert canvassing

Days before Pakistan's election, a masked and headscarf-clad Komal Asghar led a team of similarly dressed women through alleys in the eastern city of Lahore.

Their mission: To knock on doors and distribute campaign pamphlets adorned with photos of jailed former prime minister, Imran Khan.

Asghar, a 25-year-old insurance company employee, gave up her day job for a month to canvass for Khan's embattled Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.

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Khan has been in prison since August. Numerous PTI candidates are behind bars or on the run from criminal and terrorism charges that they say are politically motivated. A Reuters reporter witnessed one of the many rallies that PTI supporters say have been disrupted.

"I'm with Khan. I don't care about my life. My God is with me," said Asghar, adding the former premier's opponents can "do whatever".

Asghar said the face and hair coverings — which not all the women usually wore — made it easier for them to canvass without attracting unwanted attention. The public perceives women as non-threatening, she said, making it less likely their campaigning would lead to conflict.

The PTI is deploying a two-pronged campaign strategy of secretive campaigning, often led by female teacher volunteers, and generative AI technology, according to interviews with fifteen of its candidates and supporters, as well as political analysts and IT experts.

The party has used generative AI to create footage of Khan, its founder, reading speeches he conveyed to lawyers from his prison cell, urging supporters to turn out on election day. It has organised online rallies on social media that have been watched by several hundred thousand people at a time, according to YouTube data. Khan, who was barred by a court from holding political office last year, is not the first Pakistani leader to be imprisoned during a campaign. But PTI's ability to tap into new technology and the former cricketer's personal popularity have kept him in the headlines.

Khan was sentenced to ten years imprisonment on January 30 for leaking state secrets. He then received a 14-year sentence on Wednesday for illegally selling state gifts. And on Saturday, he was sentenced to seven years for unlawful marriage. He denies all charges and his lawyers say they plan to appeal. The 71-year-old won the last election, in 2018, but was ousted in 2022 after falling out with the country's powerful military, which PTI has accused of trying to hound it out of existence.

The military denies the allegations and interim Information Minister Murtaza Solangi told Reuters that PTI was only stopped from campaigning when it did not have the required permits or if supporters clashed with law enforcement.

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Usman Anwar, police chief of Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province, said his force's job was to provide security: "We have not and will not interfere in any political process."

Rights groups and rival politicians have accused Khan of undermining democratic norms when in power by cracking down on media and persecuting his opponents through the same anti-graft tribunal that sentenced him on Wednesday.

PTI and Khan have called the allegations baseless.

No reliable polling is publicly available but PTI's workers and independent analysts such as Madiha Afzal of the US-based Brookings Institution think-tank say Khan maintains strong support, especially among the nation's large youth population. Nonetheless, restrictions are likely to limit PTI's ability to compete with rivals such as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), led by the frontrunner, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, said Afzal. Sharif returned from exile late last year and his corruption convictions and lifetime ban from politics were recently overturned by the Supreme Court.

A PML-N spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

"The major structural barriers to the PTI in this election ... make it likely that the party will lose despite its popularity," said Afzal, adding that Khan's dedicated supporters meant it was too early to write off the party entirely.

PTI has not said who it will put forward as prime minister if it is victorious on February 8.

The restrictions on the party have forced it to prioritise digital campaigning, said PTI's US-based social media lead Jibran Ilyas, who like the party's other digital leaders is based abroad. Though only about half of Pakistan's 240 million people have smartphones and internet connectivity is patchy, PTI hopes that it can reach enough young people to impact the election. The voting age is 18 and more than two-thirds of the electorate is under 45.

Central to this strategy is reminding people who may have voted for PTI due to its famous founder that it is still Khan's party.

"We have never had a political rally without Imran Khan so when we were planning the online rally, we wanted to find a way to present him to the people," Ilyas said.

"Each time we go out to campaign, there is fear hanging over our most candidates," he said. "Everybody feels that each day of campaign ... is a war."