ormer prime minister Imran Khan has held impressive power shows in the provincial metropolises of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and the Punjab. Many people in the country’s urban centres are apparently willing to believe his narrative, knitted around the alleged US conspiracy to oust him through a no-confidence motion. Still, Khan has plenty of challenges ahead including pending cases that may weaken his anti-US movement and damage him and his aides politically.

Khan’s government remained under continuous pressure because of insufficient strength in the parliament, lack of planning to address economic issues, mismanagement and U-turns on various important decisions and policies. He adopted various strategies to maintain his popularity, starting with an anti-corruption narrative and economy of hens and roosters to Riasat-i-Medina (State of Medina) and Amr bil Ma’roof (call to piety), none of which has worked for him. What truly helped him not only maintain but also increase his popularity was his claim about the Letter-gate scandal.

Khan and his team resisted constitutional moves by the joint opposition and even the Supreme Court’s directions with full force. A similar effort was observed in the Punjab. This forced some of his supporters, who value rule of law and the constitution, to rethink their support for the PTI.

Fearing that a campaign to malign him and his party members would be launched soon, Khan started shaping public opinion in his favour. Before being ousted, he stated in an interview, “Now they (the then opposition) will target Farah Khan, a friend of my spouse.”

His statement was intriguing not only for his opponents but also his own aides. Farah Khan should have been a nobody in the grand scheme of things but his statement indicated otherwise. Farah Khan and her spouse, Ahsan Jamil Gujjar, left the country before Khan’s ouster. She had been facing allegations of minting money by facilitating high-level transfers and postings in the Punjab. If the new government gets something concrete against her, it may try to bring her back. If she can be brought back and allegations against her are proven, it risks tarnishing Khan’s reputation.

Perhaps one of the most significant challenges faced by Khan is the perception that he does not enjoy the support of the military leadership or the judiciary. Some of Khan’s supporters have already run a malicious social media campaign against Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial and the other judges in the bench that ruled that no-confidence motion be voted on.

Before Khan’s recent ouster from the corridors of power, the military leadership had rescued the PTI government in every difficult situation, be it the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s agitation or problems in relationships with friendly countries like Saudi Arabia and China.

On Wednesday, former information minister Fawad Chaudhry admitted that the relationship between the PTI and the military establishment was not good. “We would have been in the government if our relations were not spoiled.”

For now, the immediate challenges to Khan are the foreign funding case and the Toshakhana (gift house) scandal. On Wednesday, the Islamabad High Court ruled that gifts received in his capacity as prime minister and retained following a nominal payment should be returned to the prime minister’s house.

Akbar S Babar, one of Khan’s close early confidants, who had supported the PTI for years, is the petitioner in the foreign funding case. He believes that there has been massive financial bungling in the party’s funds and that some of the funds received in the name of charity were used for political activities. The PTI had requested the Election Commission of Pakistan to separate Babar from the case but the request was turned down.

Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, once described by Khan as the best person for the job, is hearing the case but Khan does not trust him any longer. The Islamabad High Court’s order that the Election Commission must come up with a decision within 30 days has added to the worries of Khan and his associates. The order has been challenged before a larger bench of the court. The case has been under trial for over four years.

After accusing the opposition leaders of conspiring against the legitimate government and citing their meetings with some US diplomats as evidence, on Wednesday Khan received US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar at his Bani Gala residence and did not speak about the US conspiracy.

Khan is also in need of keeping his narrative alive and pressing the government for early elections. The government, for its part, is in no mood to hold early elections and wants to see Khan’s popularity diminish by bringing forth evidence of corruption against him and his party colleagues. On the other hand, the Election Commission of Pakistan has started the process of delimitation that will take at least four months. The PTI has also filed a petition against the delimitation process, sensing that early elections are key to its success and that every passing day will benefit the other parties, especially the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) in the Punjab.

That’s not all. There is no establishment behind the PTI; big financiers like Jehangir Tareen and Aleem Khan have left the party and joined hands with the PML-N. Keeping these factors in view, Khan has appealed to his supporters to donate funds for the party.

The road ahead for the former PM and his party is a little more than bumpy.

The writer is a senior journalist, teacher of journalism, and analyst. He tweets at @BukhariMubasher