Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a national election in Pakistan, coup accusations against former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and Ukraine’s new military chief.
“Selection,” Not Election
Pakistan held national elections to choose a new parliament on Thursday in what will be the country’s third-ever democratic transition between civilian governments. Results are expected on Friday, but experts predict that three-time former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League party is likely to clinch the win despite early results showing independents backed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party leading in multiple constituencies.
As FP’s Michael Kugelman writes in this week’s South Asia Brief, the country’s powerful military has already heavily shaped the vote’s outcome by weakening the two parties that rival Sharif’s, leading some Pakistanis to call the process a “selection” instead of a true vote.
Sharif returned from a nearly four-year self-imposed exile in October 2023 to run for reelection. Upon his return, Pakistan’s Supreme Court overturned his prison sentences and lifted a lifetime ban on politicians convicted under certain provisions of the constitution, allowing Sharif to seek a fourth term. A few months later, popular opposition leader and former Prime Minister Imran Khan was barred from running for reelection for the next 10 years due to convictions for corruption and selling state gifts. Khan was ousted via a no-confidence vote in April 2022 in a move that his supporters accuse the military of orchestrating.
In the months leading up to Thursday’s election, the Pakistani military arrested many of Khan’s supporters and members of his PTI party, leaving rival candidate Bilawal Bhutto Zardari of the Pakistan Peoples Party as Sharif’s biggest competitor. If Sharif’s party does not secure an outright majority, then experts predict that he will likely establish a coalition government with Bhutto Zardari’s support, further alienating Khan’s party.
The military deployed around 650,000 security personnel across the country on Thursday to ensure a peaceful vote. But heavy protests and violent attacks continued to mar the election. Suspected Pakistani Taliban members killed at least five police officers and a soldier in two separate assaults on Thursday. And locals reported unidentified fighters throwing grenades at polling stations in Balochistan province, where twin explosions targeting campaign offices on Wednesday killed at least 30 people. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s bombings.
Pakistan’s ruling coalition shuttered mobile phone service on Thursday due to these “recent incidents of terrorism,” only to lift the shutdown hours later. Bhutto Zardari condemned the blackouts, and Khan’s PTI party criticized the internet restrictions as a “severe assault on democracy” and a “cowardly attempt by those in power to stifle dissent, manipulate the election’s outcome, and infringe upon the rights of the Pakistani people.” Global online freedom watchdog NetBlocks said the shutdowns follow “months of digital censorship targeting the political opposition.”
Around 128 million Pakistanis were registered to vote on Thursday. Key campaign issues centered on record-high inflation, frequent gas outages, and extremist violence from the Pakistani Taliban. Islamabad closed Pakistan’s borders with Iran and Afghanistan on Thursday as an added security measure.
Today’s Most Read
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What We’re Following
Coup allegations. Brazilian police accused former President Jair Bolsonaro and his top aides on Thursday of attempting an organized campaign to overthrow the 2022 presidential election and set the stage for a potential coup. The 134-page court document accused the far-right leader and his allies of spreading disinformation about voter fraud, editing a proposed order to arrest a Supreme Court justice, and recruiting military personnel to support Bolsonaro’s efforts, among other acts.
On Jan. 8, 2023, Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed the nation’s capital after election results declared Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva the winner. More than 1,400 people have been charged in the past year over their suspected involvement in the subsequent riots. Bolsonaro was in the United States during the attack.
In response to Thursday’s accusations, federal authorities ordered Bolsonaro to relinquish his passport, remain in Brazil, and cease all contact with other suspects in the case. The operation included 33 search warrants and the arrests of four senior officials in Bolsonaro’s camp.
Change of command. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reshuffled the leadership of his country’s military on Thursday, replacing Gen. Valery Zaluzhny with Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky. Zaluzhny had served as the nation’s top military chief since the war with Russia began in February 2022. This is the most high-level military shake-up in Zelensky’s administration in years, and it comes after Kyiv struggled to gain ground against Russia during a summer counteroffensive and as Moscow intensifies its strikes against Ukraine.
Syrsky, 58, led the defense of Kyiv during the war’s first month as well as a successful counteroffensive in Kharkiv in the fall of 2022. Zelensky said the decision to dismiss Zaluzhny aims to change the war’s “approaches and strategy” as the conflict nears its two-year mark.
Rafah offensive. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Thursday that Israeli forces will soon enter the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Already, at least 14 people, including five children, were killed during Israeli airstrikes on residential buildings in the area, local journalist Tareq al-Hilou told CNN, with additional attacks on Nasser Medical Center in nearby Khan Younis. A day earlier, Netanyahu rejected Hamas’s proposal for a 135-day cease-fire, arguing that Israel must completely destroy the militant group.
The U.S. State Department said on Thursday that it would not support an Israeli offensive in Rafah “without serious planning.” And United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres condemned Israel’s Rafah push, warning that “such an action would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences.” More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have fled to Rafah in recent weeks. The city’s border with Egypt also serves as the enclave’s main entry point for humanitarian aid.
Odds and Ends
Central Madrid was alive with the sound of music last Saturday when hundreds of people demonstrated against a planned eviction by hosting performances in each apartment that would be affected. Local officials are considering converting the four-story building into tourist accommodations, which would force more than 50 families out of their homes. But jazz, flamenco, and poetry artists called for the neighborhood to be protected.