LAHORE : Former prime minister Imran Khan on Wednesday said that during his three-and-half-year tenure, decision-making powers did not lie with him, even though he was in charge of running the affairs of the country.

The statement by the PTI chief, acknowledging his helplessness despite being at the helm of the affairs, came during a conversation with media persons in Lahore. Mr Khan also blamed the bad governance during his tenure on the ‘de-facto’ rulers who, apparently, did not let him turn his dream of ‘Naya Pakistan’ into reality.

During my tenure, running the affairs of the country was supposed to be my responsibility, but the “orders were coming from somewhere else”, Mr Khan said, while referring to his tenure. He added that if he had enjoyed complete authority, his administration could have competed with the reign of Sher Shah Suri – founder of the Sur empire that ruled north India in the 16th century.

Mr Khan did not name the people he had to ‘share the power’ with, but he has made similar claims in the past. In an interview in June, the former prime minister had admitted he did not enjoy absolute power, indicating that the actual centres of power in the country lay elsewhere and “everyone knows where that is”.

The former premier also talked about pressures during his time at the helm. “Our hands were tied. We were blackmailed from everywhere. Power wasn’t with us. Everyone knows where the power lies in Pakistan so we had to rely on them,” Mr Khan said.

“We relied on them all the time. They did a lot of good things too but they didn’t do many things that should’ve been done. They have the power because they control institutions such as NAB, which wasn’t in our control,”.

He also took swipe at the ‘handlers’ who, according to him, had “damaged the country more than its enemies” by allowing the ‘looters’ to get clean chits. There was an open and shut case of Rs16 billion corruption against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, but he had the “protection of handlers”, Mr Khan claimed while commenting on the acquittal of the premier and his sons in the money laundering case.

Mr Khan also talked about a need to strike a balance between a ‘strong army’ and a ‘strong government’ since, in order for the system to work efficiently, the responsibility and the authority needed to be vested in one office.