Islamabad, Pakistan – In the cavernous hall of the Jinnah Convention Centre in Islamabad, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif hailed the country’s diaspora as the “pride of the nation,” lauding them for their “unmatched contribution” to the country they have left.
And it wasn’t just talk. Speaking to an audience of more than 1,000 expatriates who had gathered to participate in the Overseas Pakistanis Convention on April 15, Sharif also promised a range of benefits that he said his government would launch to help them.
These include special courts for overseas Pakistanis so their legal disputes are resolved faster than they would be in the country’s notoriously slow judicial system. Quotas in educational institutions, faster immigration procedures at airports and tax benefits are also pledged. Sharif also said the government would award 15 eminent Pakistani expatriates every year.
“I believe there is no doubt that the 10 million Pakistanis who live across the world have earned their good reputation with their hard work and promoted Pakistan’s name,” Sharif said in his speech.
But many experts believe that the government’s bouquet of assurances to the diaspora is more than just an innocent outreach effort: it’s also a political move in a battle for the support of overseas Pakistanis with former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party is widely believed to enjoy vast support among the country’s diaspora, which in turn, wins it influence in Western capitals, shaping how those nations view Islamabad and its deep political divides.
Now, analysts say, the Sharif government is trying to break Khan’s grip over Pakistanis abroad.
“The overseas Pakistani summit seemed to have two key objectives, to counter the influence and popularity jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan enjoys among the diaspora, and to encourage the community abroad to invest in Pakistan,” Maleeha Lodhi, former Pakistani ambassador to the United States told Al Jazeera.
Why diaspora clout matters
Many PTI supporters living overseas enjoy positions of influence in those countries, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States, with nearly 1.6 million and 700,000 Pakistan-origin citizens residing there, respectively.
Former PM Khan, who was ousted from power in April 2022 through a parliamentary vote of no confidence, has been in jail since August 2023 on various charges.
His party has faced a sweeping crackdown and alleges that the results of the general elections in February 2024 were heavily manipulated, claiming that their mandate was “stolen”. The government and the country’s powerful military have rejected those allegations, but they have found resonance among many in Pakistan – and outside it.
These allegations helped drive lobbying efforts, particularly in the US, which led Congress to hold a hearing on the “future of democracy” in Pakistan in March last year.
That hearing was prompted by bipartisan calls for then-President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to scrutinise Pakistan’s controversial elections.
A few months later in October, more than 60 Democratic Party legislators urged Biden to pressure Islamabad to secure Khan’s release.
In fact, many within PTI believe that following Trump’s inauguration, the US president, who enjoyed warm ties with Khan during his first term, might intervene and help secure the former PM’s release, thanks to lobbying by the diaspora.
Arif Ansar, chief strategist of the Washington, DC-based strategic advisory firm PoliTact, acknowledged the effectiveness of the diaspora’s lobbying.
“The diaspora has been very effective in its lobbying efforts, and this has influenced the establishment to manage its relations with the diaspora. It wants to engage them and incentivise the ties as opposed to taking an adversarial role,” Ansar told Al Jazeera. The “establishment” is a euphemism for the military in Pakistan.
However, the analyst added that it was also possible that the government was trying to demonstrate that the diaspora was not monolithically aligned with the PTI.
“There are many different segments, and PTI is not the only one representing the diaspora,” he said. The government, he added, appeared eager to “build a new narrative”.
‘Counterfoil to PTI narrative’
Meanwhile, Islamabad-based political analyst Talat Hussain believes the government’s objective in hosting the convention was to show that it not only has broad reach among expats but also wants to make them stakeholders in its political and economic agenda.
“PTI’s claims to having a monopoly over overseas Pakistanis’ political sentiments are amplified through social media. Efforts such as these conventions do provide a counterfoil to the argument that expats move in the direction as instructed by Imran,” Hussain said.
Recent months have shown cracks in just how firmly Khan appears to hold the diaspora’s support.
Last December, Khan warned the government that his party would launch a civil disobedience movement, and asked the diaspora to stop sending money back to Pakistan.
But 2024 saw Pakistan receive the highest annual remittance amount in its history, reaching $34.1bn, a 32 percent increase from 2023, when overseas Pakistanis sent home close to $26bn.
And a day before Sharif’s speech at the diaspora convention in Islamabad, Jamil Ahmed, the governor of the country’s central bank, revealed that diaspora Pakistanis sent more than $4bn in March, marking the highest single-month remittance in the country’s history.
“If remittance inflows are a way to measure the efficacy of PTI’s overseas clout, then the picture is not helpful to the party’s boasts,” Hussain said.
“Two years of consistent increases in remittances, despite all appeals from Imran and the entire top leadership to not send money to what he calls a ‘corrupt and fascist regime’ tells you where expats stand.”
‘I will be your CEO’
Yet, like Lodhi, other analysts, too, believe that the Pakistan government is also wooing the diaspora because it needs them to invest in the country.
Thanking overseas Pakistanis for supporting the country’s economy, Sharif said this week that he would “personally” oversee the investments made by them.
“I will be your CEO. My cabinet and our business community will ensure that your investments are protected and facilitated,” he said.
Still, concerns linger about whether the Pakistani diaspora trusts the economic climate in a country where more and more citizens are leaving.
In the last five years, nearly three million Pakistanis have emigrated, according to government data, prompting growing concerns about a “brain drain” from the country.
However, General Syed Asim Munir, the army chief who is widely considered the country’s most powerful figure, dismissed those concerns during his speech at the diaspora convention, describing the trend instead as a “brain gain.”
“Those who talk about brain drain should understand that this is not brain drain, but rather brain gain,” he said on Tuesday.
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