Pakistan's 2024 general election was dubbed the “most rigged” in the country's history, with the popular Imran Khan banned from running and the military seen as backing former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. That was before results showed independent candidates, backed by Khan, leading the race. The stage appears to be set for a turbulent period after an angry electorate reacted – again – to the military's alleged meddling in politics.
Voters in Pakistan's 2024 general election manipulated ballots with symbols including tables, chairs, apples, airplanes, calculators and kitchen appliances, but no cricket bats.
With former cricket star and Prime Minister Imran Khan behind bars, his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has been banned from using its signature icon in a country where symbols are important tools for the electorate due to high rates. of illiteracy.
This forced PTI-backed candidates to run as independents, each using different symbols, stretching the ballots and the national imagination.
However, the country's true power-holder was not on the ballot, and Pakistanis were never given a symbol or a voice on the issue.
The 2024 general election was considered the most rigged in Pakistan's history, with jokers on social media calling it a “'general' election,” a reference to the South Asian nation's all-powerful nuclear-armed military.
The consensus before the vote was that regardless of who forms the Government, the Army will continue to lead the way. The newly elected civil administration would simply have to follow the rules of the Pakistani power game to survive.
Over the course of its 76-year history, Pakistan has developed a system, which some scholars call a “hybrid regime,” which features a mix of civilian politics and military interference in electoral democracy.
The tacit agreement provides for the generals to control defense and foreign policies, leaving internal socioeconomic issues to politicians.
However, the hybrid model has been changing in recent years, putting Pakistan on dangerous ground. And the man many believe calls the shots in the military has done little to inspire national confidence.
Prospects for a parliament with little credibility
With Khan losing military support and his party hampered in the elections, the military's chosen candidate, veteran politician Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party, was expected to win outright.
An outright victory for Sharif would put the dynastic Pakistan People's Party (PPP) into opposition, led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of assassinated Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
However, after a surprisingly strong performance by PTI-backed independent candidates, who led the national election results, Sharif changed course on Friday and declared he would form a coalition government. This he said:
“We do not have a sufficient majority to form a government without the support of others and we invite allies to join the coalition so that we can make joint efforts to get Pakistan out of its problems.”
Under Pakistan's electoral rules, victorious independent candidates can join any party in the 336-seat National Assembly.
With Khan jailed, facing nearly 200 legal charges, ranging from corruption to leaking state secrets, experts predict the popular former cricketer and politician is likely to remain behind bars for several years.
The results of Thursday's vote point to a contentious political period ahead, warns Ayesha Siddiqa, a senior research fellow at King's College London and author of “Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy.”
If there are many independents in parliament, the chamber will become a chatterbox… It will be a rebellious and fun parliament, in which everyone will attack each other's jugulars, the researcher emphasized.
Khan's fall from military grace
Overseeing the political turbulence is the man in charge of the military, Pakistani army chief General Asim Munir, at a time when the country faces major economic and security crises.
Khan may be behind bars, but he remains a political force. The former cricketer and politician maintains that the countless legal charges against him are politically motivated. Most Pakistanis, including Khan's opponents, do not disagree. A weak judiciary means Pakistan ranks 130th out of 142 countries in the World Justice Project's Rule of Law index.
Since General Munir was appointed army chief in November 2022, Khan's legal problems have multiplied. At times, they have taken an absurdly personal turn.
Relations between the two men have been acrimonious since Khan was elected prime minister in 2018 and replaced Munir as head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency with a loyalist, according to Pakistani media reports.
On February 3, just days before the election, a Pakistani court sentenced Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi to seven years in prison in a case related to their marriage, which it declared “un-Islamic.”
The verdict was widely criticized by legal experts as a “disgrace” and a “damning stain” on Pakistan's judiciary.
Sharif stands up again
When he stood for election in 2018, Khan was widely seen as the military candidate, “carefully chosen, groomed and installed” by the generals.
But that was until Khan fell out with the military, in a fate shared by Sharif, the politician widely regarded as Pakistan's new prime minister.
The change in fortunes for Khan and Sharif reflects the dramatic turn in Pakistani politics, which has been compared to a “Game of Thrones.”
In 2017, Sharif was ousted as prime minister when he attempted to institute civilian oversight of the military. After being indicted on a series of corruption charges, Sharif went into self-exile abroad to avoid serving sentences. Khan at the time was seen as the army's favorite son.
But when the country spiraled into political turmoil last year, with Khan's supporters storming residences and army bases in unprecedented displays of discontent with the military, Sharif returned to favor with the generals.
After four years of exile, Sharif returned to Pakistan last October. Within weeks of his return, his convictions were overturned, leaving him free to seek a fourth term.
Sharif, a businessman and former chief minister of Punjab, Pakistan's most populous and prosperous province, has a history of pursuing economic growth and development.
During his previous terms as prime minister, the billionaire politician sought closer trade ties with India, Pakistan's giant neighbor and arch-enemy.
Sharif's return to Pakistan was widely seen as a sign that the military was looking for a safe pair of hands to handle the country's crippling economic crisis. But in recent months, the military has increasingly invaded the economic field.
The Army occupies the highest position in the economic council
More than seven decades after independence, Pakistan is facing its worst economic crisis. Inflation has hovered around 30 percent, sending the currency, the rupee, into free fall.
Last year, the impoverished South Asian nation narrowly escaped a sovereign debt default when the IMF approved a $3 billion bailout package.
While given a Band-Aid to bring it back from the brink, Pakistan has yet to address major structural issues as it seeks a new IMF bailout program after the current deal expires in three weeks.
As the crisis deepened last year, Pakistan established an apex economic body, the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), to coordinate economic and fiscal policies.
The formation of the SIFC was touted as a key measure to boost international investor confidence and uphold democratic governance.
But then the Army secured a prominent position at the economic policy table, shocking fiscal circles with the announcement that the co-chairman of the new SIFC was none other than Army chief General Munir.
Discontent towards Pakistani rulers
In the 2024 vote, the Army played an exceptionally heavy card, even by Pakistani standards. The tactic appeared to have backfired, with voters beating the odds to elect PTI-backed candidates, but this could mean a period of further turmoil, analysts warn.
“Assuming that the majority of the independent candidates are the PTI, if the PML-N [de Sharif] has to form a government, it will have to form a coalition…The weaker the coalition, the stronger the military is,” said Siddiqa, a senior researcher at King's College London.
The military's meddling in politics has long earned the ire of Pakistani democratic rights advocates.
Nearly 15 years ago, one of the country's leading human rights lawyers, the late Asma Jehangir, caused a stir when she called the country's military leaders “fools” on a live television show.
Jehangir later modified his nickname to “dangerous fools”, noting that the term implied that senior military commanders were “not only incompetent, but also incapable of learning.”
The latest elections have shown that Jehangir's verdict is still valid, according to Siddiqa.
“They haven't changed much, they are still dangerous fools because they believe they have a role in governance… but the army is a strong pole, as are the political parties. With these elections, the political parties are back in play .Now it depends on how they behave,” said Siddiqa.
In the past, Pakistan's political parties have formed common cause with the military in a bid to topple their rivals. The lack of civil unity to relegate the military to the barracks has allowed the generals to periodically interfere in the voting.
Following Thursday's vote, social media sites were flooded with messages from Pakistanis calling for dialogue and national unity. If their calls are ignored, it will not be the first time in Pakistan's turbulent history.
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