पाकिस्तान चुनाव

​Pakistan’s polity still has an opportunity to use the unique moment that voters have provided, to change course

With the results of last week’s elections in Pakistan, voters there have delivered their politicians a unique moment in history — one which could present the polity an opportunity to change the endless cycles of the past. These cycles have always brought those favoured by the military establishment to power in the country, followed by a period of tensions and fracture between the military and the political rulers, the dismissal of that government, the appointment of another, and then another election. Rinse, repeat.

पाकिस्तान की पॉलीटिकल पार्टी का इतिहास

1 : first, none of the country’s 30 Prime Ministers thus far has completed a full term in office.

2  Second, every current major political party, i.e., Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), and Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), has at some point been the military’s “favourite” in an election. 

3 And third, each of those parties has by turn fallen out of favour as well, and its leaders have found themselves imprisoned or ‘exiled’ from the country.

A rotation of the same leaders

While previous decades after 1947 

saw a few political governments interspersed बीच-बीच में between military rule and martial law, since 2008, the military has played its role without actually taking over the reins लगाम of government. 

In this elaborate game of master-puppetry, military chiefs have had the support of all government arms and the judiciary, that have dismissed a number of Prime Ministers in a series of conveniently आसानी से timed Supreme Court judgments.

सरकार डिसमिस  होना 

In 2012, PPP Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was dismissed for contempt of court for refusing to reopen cases against then-President Asif Ali Zardari,

 and in 2017, PML-N Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was dismissed over the Panama Papers leak about a London apartment. 

राजनीति में पुनः वापसी 

Given the limited number of players in Pakistan’s polity, however, the same leaders are re-introduced into the political spin cycle by the judiciary as well.

 So, Mr. Sharif was able to return to Pakistan last year just in time for elections because the cases against him were overturned,पलट जाना and Mr. Zardari’s PPP is essaying another term for him as President if it enters into a coalition deal for the next government.

Imran Khan case 

Meanwhile, Imran Khan was dismissed after a no-confidence vote in Parliament, which was ordered by the Supreme Court (it had reversed his dissolution of the house and his call for general elections in April 2022).

 Mr. Khan has since been convicted on charges that range from corruption to insurrection, and is also serving a seven-year prison term along with his wife Bushra Bibi for an “illegal marriage” (deemed “un-Islamic” by the courts).

 Apart from Mr. Khan’s incarceration, the Pakistani courts have passed a slew of verdicts against the PTI, allowing cases against many PTI party members — some of them have quit politics rather than face repeated arrests.

 The country’s media regulator had already banned the PTI leader’s speeches from being aired on television. 

The Supreme Court also endorsed the Election Commission’s decision to derecognise the PTI, and take away the party symbol (cricket bat), forcing the party to field all its candidates as Independents.

2024 का चुनाव कैसा रहा ?

Days later, the Election Commission showed a three-way result, reversing many of the early leads, which led to the current tally where none of the parties has enough to form a majority on their own; 

while the PTI Independents have the biggest haul of seats, the single largest party at present is the PML.

Predictably, the PML and PPP have decided to form a government together.

 The Election Commission will complete the formal notification of these results over the next few days, after which the Independents will have 72 hours to pledge allegiance to one or another political party, or risk losing out on a further share of proportional seats for women and minorities (allotted on a pro-rata basis to parties).

 One can be sure that each of the elected 93 members is already receiving threats and incentives to break away from the PTI 

 But, Pakistan’s polity still has a chance to take the unique decision 

On the Pakistan voter

. If Mr. Khan wants to respect that vote and thwart the establishment, then the answer is not to go it alone and sit in the opposition, but, instead, to find ways to be in the government. 

For the PML-N and PPP, to form a government that cuts out the PTI would be a travesty of the vote as well, as this was a voter who clearly rejected the previous PML-PPP government, also led by Shahbaz Sharif (2022-2024), before the elections.

कोई भी साफ सुथरा नहीं है 

Before he was disqualified for corruption in 2017, Nawaz Sharif had been sentenced to life imprisonment in 2000 on charges of hijacking and terrorism, and yet, returned as Prime Minister in 2013.

.

आने वाली सरकार को क्या करना होगा

1 Third, given the state of Pakistan’s economy, the next government will need to adopt harsher reforms 

2 and measures to stay within the International Monetary Fund’s programme that has mandated four priorities: 

🍁severe budget cuts;

🍁 return to market-determined foreign exchange rates which will plunge imports; 

🍁a tight monetary policy to curb inflation,

 🍁and structural reforms particularly for the energy sector. 

Fight authoritarian forces

Pakistan’s first elections in 1970 were able to show just that, as the Awami League won the elections

 and insisted on forming the government even though Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was jailed

. In choosing to muzzle the people of East Pakistan thereafter, its military rulers lost a large piece of their country.

Another significant outcome in 2024 is the poor showing by religious parties 

such as the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam- and Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, and the even worse performance of violent extremists such as the Tehreek-e-Labaik, not to mention Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed’s son Talha Saeed. 

The real lessons, however, are for the polity globally: in the larger laundry cycle of governance, democratically-minded leaders must learn to hang together against authoritarian forces, or risk being hung out to dry sooner or later.

suhasini.h@thehindu.co.in