Bushra Bibi’s extraordinary influence and role in government affairs during the Imran Khan regime has been revealed.
International reports on Pakistani politics often spark new debates. A recent report by the British journal The Economist has sparked a new and unusual debate about the role of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi.
The report claims that Bushra Bibi’s influence continued to be present on many important decisions, government appointments, and daily administrative matters during Imran Khan’s government.
According to international news agencies, senior journalist Owen Bennett Jones, the author of this report, said in his research article that Imran Khan’s third marriage not only changed the course of his private life but also had significant effects on the internal affairs of the government.
The report claims that the former prime minister’s inner circle repeatedly felt during this period that Bushra Bibi’s consultation on important appointments and government policies had an informal but powerful status. The impression of ‘spiritual guidance’ in many decisions was so strong that the direction of the government agenda was sometimes felt to change.
The report, published in The Economist, also contains a highly sensitive allegation that some government officials directly provided Bushra Bibi with information that was usually kept secret. According to the report, this information was later conveyed to Imran Khan in a manner that made it seem like it was the result of spiritual insight or supernatural signals.
This situation raised many questions about the decision-making process within the government, and according to observers, this factor became a major obstacle to Imran Khan’s reform promises.
Avon Bennett Jones further said in his report that many of Imran Khan’s close associates were surprised by the changing trends in the government’s direction during this period. The perception had also begun to spread within the bureaucracy that in some matters, the influence of another force was more prominent than that of the prime minister. These observations not only affected government confidence but also increased internal party differences, which had a direct impact on government performance.
The report also emphasized that this alleged spiritual influence in decisions increased suspicion about the political leadership, while this perception deepened divisions even within Imran Khan’s own party.
Observers say that in political history, government decisions are always based on consultation, wisdom, and experience, but if it is determined that decisions are being made under the influence of an unelected or non-official individual, the political and administrative consequences are felt for a long time.
