Pakistan is scheduled to hold elections on Feb. 8, the latest crucial date in the country’s democratic experiment. Some observers feared Islamabad’s election commission could postpone the vote due to worsening security conditions, but even as the elections go ahead, many analysts worry they may not be free or fair. Pakistan has a long history of political interference in democratic processes by its powerful military.
The upcoming elections offer little hope for near-term political stability. Pakistan, currently led by a caretaker government, faces myriad political, economic, and security threats. Popular opposition leader and former Prime Minister Imran Khan sits in prison, convicted on corruption and state secrets charges. On Feb. 8, the military establishment is betting on a leader it dethroned not too long ago: former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whose brother Shehbaz led the most recent coalition government.
Because Pakistan’s civil-military relations tilt in favor of the army, politicians are incentivized to side with the generals to attain power. This dynamic has weakened the constitution, compromised the judiciary, and undermined democratic elections. The military no longer intervenes in politics via coup, but its leaders have invested in the political system. Pakistan has developed into a hybrid regime where elements of electoral democracy and military influence mingle. Next week’s vote will only mark the next chapter of hybrid rule.
In 2017, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ousted Sharif as prime minister after his family was linked to offshore companies in the Panama Papers leak; he was later disqualified from holding public office. Sharif had also tried to assert civilian supremacy over the army, and there are strong claims that the army played a role in his ouster, as well as the election of Khan in 2018. As Khan suffered his own fall from grace, Sharif was allowed to return to Pakistan last year. The cases against him have been cleared, potentially enabling him to participate in the elections—hinting that the military may condone his return to the prime minister’s seat.
Many observers regard Khan’s rise to power in 2018 as the outcome of electoral engineering by the military establishment. For a time, Khan seemed to share a mutually beneficial relationship with the army. However, he made a series of missteps in policy areas dominated by the military. First, he endorsed an inexperienced official to become chief minister of Punjab province, which irked then-Pakistan Army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa. His disagreement with Bajwa in 2021 over a replacement for the director-general of Pakistan’s premier intelligence service further alarmed the army.
Khan had promised to create Naya Pakistan—a new Pakistan—and to carry out sweeping reforms, but he mostly failed to realize these promises during his almost four years in power. Growing economic volatility and the indifference of some of Pakistan’s closest allies toward the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government further undermined Khan’s leadership. In April 2022, the old guard led by the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) called a vote of no confidence against Khan. He was voted out and sentenced to three years in jail last August after a conviction for illegally selling state gifts. Khan alleges the military arranged his ouster.
Motivated by their own interests, Pakistan’s political elites have long been complicit in tolerating the military’s domination of the democratic system. But Pakistan’s political parties have also attempted to establish civilian supremacy and failed to sustain it. As prime minister in the 1990s, Sharif sought to exert his control over state institutions, including the military. Gen. Pervez Musharraf led a military coup against his government in 1999 and became president in 2001. A conflict between Pakistan and India in the hills of Kargil is widely seen as the reason for the coup, but such analysis ignores the role of Sharif’s quest for civilian supremacy.
Musharraf not only prolonged the first exile of Sharif and the self-exile of then-opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, which reshaped Pakistan’s political parties. Ultimately, rivals PML-N and the PPP grew closer, especially after the fallout between the judiciary and Musharraf over the latter’s decision to suspend Pakistan’s chief justice. In 2006, the PML-N and the PPP agreed on a Charter of Democracy, an unprecedented development that sought to limit the army’s role in politics. In 2008, the two parties briefly formed a coalition government to keep the army and its disciples away from politics.
Sharif’s PML-N won a simple majority in the 2013 elections, and Pakistan saw its first peaceful transfer of power. However, Sharif’s growing clout didn’t sit well with the military establishment. In 2014, the military helped Khan launch mass protests against the government; they were also supported and attended by prominent religious figures and clerics. However, Khan called off the four-month protest movement in the wake of a terrorist attack against Peshawar’s Army Public School that killed 149 people. “Pakistan cannot afford [our] opposition in these testing times,” he said at the time.
A deteriorating security situation also contributed to the end of Khan’s tenure in 2022. Following his removal, a coalition of traditional political parties led by PML-N took over, with Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister. It needed the army’s backing to succeed. Instead of working for democratic rights, the coalition government amended Pakistan’s Official Secrets Act to give vast powers to the army and intelligence agencies to conduct raids and arrest civilians. The Pakistan Army Act amendment of 2023 criminalized criticism of the military, especially from retired service members. Army Chief of Staff Asim Munir became a member of a new council aimed at garnering foreign investment and boosting economic growth.
The expanded powers that the Pakistani Army now possesses seem to classify the state as what scholar Ayesha Siddiqa calls a hybrid-martial law system, in which all real power lies with the military while a civilian government is relegated to the position of junior partner. It now appears the judiciary is also toeing the military establishment’s line, with the Islamabad High Court recently acquitting Sharif in a corruption case and ultimately enabling him to contest elections. Khan, in prison, still faces a host of charges. His supporters have not been allowed to hold political conventions or meetings ahead of the elections. Mass protests against Khan’s initial arrest last May seemed to spook the military establishment.
The military’s greater machinations have yet to play out. Interestingly, the PPP chairman, Bilawal Bhutto, has accused the establishment of favoring Sharif—raising questions about the strength of the party’s alliance with PML-N. Bhutto may be filling the political vacuum left by the sidelining of the PTI. Sindh province recently saw a reshuffling of senior bureaucrats seen as favoring the PPP. Meanwhile, the PTI has raised concerns about election officers appointed ahead of the vote and demanded the appointment of officials from the lower judiciary as supervisors for the polls.
PML-N appears to be forging alliances with its traditional partners such as Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Pakistan (Fazl), or JUI-F, which has significant political support in the tribal areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In Baluchistan province, PML-N has managed to secure two dozen so-called electables, local leaders with strong support base. The new Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party—made up of disgruntled former PTI members—has announced a pre-election seat-sharing arrangement with PML-N. The PML-N also finalized a seat-sharing arrangement with the Pakistan Muslim League Quaid e Azam Group, itself formed by former PML-N members in 2002.
Even behind bars, Khan remains the most popular politician in Pakistan. If the military establishment secures an election outcome in its favor, the next coalition government will still struggle to maintain its power across Pakistan’s political institutions. Pakistan urgently needs consensus among its stakeholders about how to create a robust democracy; the easiest way to reach it would be through free and fair elections without military interference. Perhaps the political parties should come up with a new charter of democracy.
But until and unless politicians stop pursuing narrow interests, the military establishment will continue to pull the strings of any government in power in Pakistan.