Pakistan elections: A mandate against the army

Dr. Sudhir Kumar Das

(The writer can be reached at dasudhirk@gmail.com)

A  popular saying goes in Pakistan that the army of the country may
not have won a single war, but it has never lost an election. However, the recent general election held on February 8 has proved this saying wrong. The military of Pakistan, known as the all-powerful ‘establishment,’ wanted to make its favourite person, the Prime Minister, through a manipulated electoral process, as it has been doing since the country came into existence in 1947. However, this time the army has suffered a severe blow to its king-maker image. A queer method of the army selecting a civilian Prime Minister has been normalised in Pakistan since its inception. Thirty-two prime ministers in Pakistan have come and gone in the last 76 years of its existence. Out of which 18 times Prime Ministers have been removed on charges of corruption or military coups, fortunate if left alive. One of them, Liaquat Ali Khan, the first Prime Minister, was assassinated in 1951, and another, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was judicially murdered in 1977. In this game of thrones, the army always wanted a compliant person who would do their bidding without question. Any Prime Minister who dared to question the army was removed on charges sometimes fabricated and sometimes purely chimeric, as in the case of Nawaz Sharif in 2017, who was dismissed for not being Sadiq (truthful) and amin (faithful/trustworthy) to hold the office of the Prime Minister. The establishment found Imran Khan as a replacement for Nawaz Sharif. In 2018, it was Imran Khan who was the blue-eyed boy of the establishment and was anointed as the Prime Minister. By being Prime Minister backed by the army, he earned the sobriquet of ‘selected PM’ from his adversaries. As his term as PM progressed, he became delusional about his real power and stepped into the forbidden path of meddling in the affairs of the appointment of the army chief. The then army chief, Qamar Javed Bajwa, cracked the whip, and Imran Khan had to be unceremoniously ousted, fortunately through a parliamentary process, a rarity in Pakistani politics. Army Chief Bajwa retired, handing over the baton to General Asim Munir, but the persecution and prosecution of Imran Khan continued simultaneously and even more intensely. Soon followed a plethora of court cases filed against him, from allegations of corruption to revealing state secrets to unislamic marriage. The courts convicted him in these three cases for 31 years. His wife, Bushra Bibi, too, was sentenced to prison. There is a strange coincidence in Pakistan’s judiciary that anyone whom the army wanted to oust the judiciary complied and immediately convicted him or her. It happened with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977, with Benazir Bhutto in 1990 and 1996, and with Nawaz Sharif in 1996 and 2017. This coincidence between the establishment’s desire and the judiciary’s decision remains a mystery to many. Imran Khan was disqualified from contesting elections, his party was barred from contesting the elections, its election symbol, the cricket bat, was rendered unusable, his supporters and party workers were suppressed and harassed, and the army did everything to prevent Imran Khan from coming to power in any manner. This time, the army reposed its faith in an old horse in the form of Nawaz Sharif, the fall guy of 2017. Nawaz Sharif holds the dubious record of being the only person in Pakistan’s political history to become the country’s Prime Minister for three terms without completing even a single one.

In the last 2018 elections, the scenario was completely different; the establishment stood solidly behind Imran Khan, the blue-eyed boy, and was against Nawaz Sharif. Now, in 2024, the same Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted on charges of corruption in 2017, was brought back from his exile in London. All his court convictions were overturned in record time, and the establishment wanted him to be the Prime Minister through the manipulated elections where Imran Khan was not given a level playing field. However, the election results belied the hopes of the establishment. Despite all the restrictions on Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the candidates contesting as independents have so far won 101 seats (93 PTI-backed) out of the declared 264 seats. Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (N), notwithstanding all the tacit support of the establishment, has been victorious only in 75 seats, much short of the majority. Bilawal Zardari Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party has so far been successful in 54 seats. Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM, P), a fundamentalist party, has won 17 seats. The results showed that whatever picture the establishment may project of Imran Khan, he emerged as the most popular leader of Pakistan despite the fact that he is now jailed and was not allowed to canvass in the elections. Open rigging, delay in declaring the results, suspension of the mobile network, and suppression of the opposition have made this election the least credible in the history of the country. The credibility of the elections has been questioned by many international observers.

This unexpected election result in Pakistan has brought to the fore the fact that the Pakistani public is now fed up with the interference of the army in the election process of the country. Although the election results on the surface buttress the popularity of Imran Khan as the leader of the masses, they also points to the fact that they are more an expression of the frustration of the masses at the army’s role in bringing the country to this crisis. What buttresses this argument is that after over four years of rule, Imran Khan had failed to revive the crisis-ridden economy and was mired in many controversies, like the Toshakhana case and his wife’s complicity in many corruption cases. His anti-West and anti-America tirades damaged Pakistan’s foreign relations substantially. To gain his lost popularity, he turned Islamist and talked of turning Pakistan into a ‘riyasat-i-Madina.’ Many political observers feel that had he continued for the full term, he would have lost the next election automatically. Secondly, this election has again brought to the surface the systematic failure of democratic institutions like the Election Commission, bureaucracy, and, most importantly, the judiciary to strengthen the roots of democracy in the country. Thirdly, the fragmented mandate has only further worsened the political instability in the country. As is evident in the stock market crash soon after the election results were out, the coalition that will be stitched together of disparate elements will not enjoy any credibility, and the distrust of the masses in the governing system will continue to damage the political and social fabric of the country. Such a condition, ironically, will strengthen the grip of the military over the political leadership. The best thing would have been to honour the mandate of the people as it happens in democracies and for the army to reconcile with Imran Khan. For this to happen, the generals have to swallow their pride, which is like expecting to hand over Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to India peacefully. The people of Pakistan should remember the history of the 1970 general elections, in which the winner, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was denied his legitimate political due, and as a consequence, the country split into two.