As the U.S. administration is increasingly strengthening ties with Pakistan, it appears that the Pakistani military has rigged (yet again) the country's own national election.
Observer groups, media, and members of the international community (including citizens from the U.S., the UK, and the EU) have widely accused the Pakistan military establishment of rigging their February 2024 elections held for the 16th National Assembly. The results favored Nawaz Sharif (from the Pakistan Muslim League, also known as PMLN) over Imran Khan (from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI) in the electoral race.
Khan was removed from office by a 2022 no-confidence motion. The next day, Shehbaz Sharif was elected unopposed.
In 2023, Khan was convicted of corruption, arrested, and barred from politics for 5 years. His party was stripped of electoral symbols for a multi-year failure to hold intra-party elections. The Commissioner of Rawalpindi admitted to converting 13 losers into winners. He further implicated the head of the Election Commission and the country's top judge as examples. In this election, independent candidates won 103 (93 backed by PTI), PMLN won 75, and PPP (Pakistan People's Party) won 54 seats. As a result, PMLN and PPP formed a coalition government.
The election thus maintained Pakistan’s current military-backed government in power. It was marred by widespread fraud that flagrantly overrode the clear will of voters who had widely supported the party of the imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
It has also recently turned out that an international body tasked with monitoring elections and democratic institutions, the Commonwealth of Nations, quietly suppressed a report critical of Pakistan’s election in February of last year.
In February 2024, the Commonwealth Secretariat sent a 13-member Elections Observer Group (EOG) to Pakistan, headed by the former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. Its purpose was to monitor Pakistan’s elections, which is standard practice for the organization. While the EOG gave a generally positive statement in the immediate aftermath of the elections, its official report was highly critical: it accused the government of actions that violated “fundamental political rights, including freedom of association, assembly, and expression.”
The Secretariat informally shared the report with the Pakistani government soon after it was submitted to the secretary-general, after which Pakistan requested that the Commonwealth suppress it, according to Drop Site News.
Astonishingly, the then-Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Patricia Scotland, complied, burying one of the most detailed reports highlighting the widespread electoral fraud that the Pakistani military used to hang onto power.
Politics in Pakistan is often closely intertwined with family politics.
The Sharif family runs the PMLN, and the Bhutto family runs the PPP. When Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on corruption charges in 2018, his brother had already announced his candidacy for prime minister. In 2023, Nawaz Sharif returned from self-exile.
Imran Khan (PTI Chairman) filed a case against Prime Minister Sharif in 2016 because of the leaked Panama Papers, which noted irregularities in the prime minister’s personal finances. Khan then became prime minister from 2018 to 2022. He had a track record of neglecting the plight of religious and ethnic minorities, instead wooing radical Islamic groups. Khan’s imprisonment and ban from elected office proved no barrier to his party’s candidates winning a plurality of seats in the February 2024 elections, further deepening the political crisis.
Rigged elections appear to be Pakistan’s norm. On July 25, 2018, for instance, the 15th National Assembly held elections. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan called it the dirtiest and most micromanaged election in Pakistan’s history. Pre-poll manipulation and political engineering denied a level playing field to all political parties. Instead, it favored the PTI and demonstrated colossal mismanagement (counting of votes and inexplicable delay in declaring results). Post poll manipulation corralled the independents and smaller parties towards the PTI. The media was intimidated, and the Supreme Court disqualified Nawaz Sharif from contesting the election on charges of corruption.
In the May 2013 elections, Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PMLN) was able to form the government by winning 166 seats out of a total of 342 in the National Assembly. However, violence, bomb blasts, and the misuse of state power marred elections. Hence, several political parties (such as Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan (JI)) boycotted the election. President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the violence, and PTI declared the elections highly rigged.
On Feb. 18, 2008, another election was held. However, Pakistan's Attorney General was told in advance about plans to rig the elections. The voter turnout was 44%, and government machinery was misused to a significant extent. PPP and PMLN formed a post-poll alliance coalition government.
The Supreme Court ordered new elections to occur on October 20, 2002. They were held under the military government of Pervez Musharraf, and the Election Commission failed to assert its independence. Instead, the latter was only able to prevent Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto from holding their public office. Pre-poll rigging favored a manufactured pro-Musharraf government. The result was a hung parliament: PPP and Pakistan Muslim League-Q/PML(Q) formed a government under the leadership of its new Prime Minister, Zafarullah Khan Jamali.
It is thus safe to say Pakistan has never had free and fair elections. Every single national election was rigged or manipulated by either the military or other powers.
On Dec. 7, 1970, for instance, the first direct general election following the independence of Pakistan was held. All Pakistan Awami League won 167 out of 313 seats. Sheikh Mujibur Rehman was to be the first democratically elected government, but Pakistan's military government refused to transfer power to the elected parliament.
On March 7, 1977, the first general elections occurred after the 1971 India-Pakistan War. PPP won, but there were mass protests due to electoral manipulation. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the chief of army staff, held a military coup, overthrowing the government of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The undemocratic and rigged elections in Pakistan impact society and politics on all levels. In Pakistan, the situation of law and order from the local to the national level remains poor. The country has a long history of corruption, which is partly driven by the army but has multiple other drivers. The human rights organization Open Doors explains:
Pakistani politics have always shown a mixture of Islamic oppression and dictatorial paranoia. Every government has had to struggle with opposition, radical groups, a strong independent army pulling strings behind the scenes and corruption charges; as a result, all governments try everything possible to hold on to power…
Corruption is rampant in Pakistan at all levels of administration and in the army. The army is deeply entrenched in the country’s economy and is a strong competitor in many economic fields. It enjoys unfair advantages which a popular joke about the army illustrates well: "All countries have armies, but here, an army has a country". Although it is difficult to access details, estimations say that the army holds assets valued at around 10 billion USD, including around 5 million hectares of farmland.
In addition, Pakistan has openly enabled terrorist groups, lending covert assistance to the Taliban, who retook Afghanistan in 2021. Relations between the United States and Pakistan have been fraught ever since Osama bin Laden was discovered hiding in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011.
Radical Islamic groups are flourishing in Pakistan and are used by various political groups as allies. Their power to mobilize hundreds of thousands of predominantly young people and take them to the streets remains a political tool that offers strong leverage for enforcing political goals. Open Doors notes:
In Pakistan, several radical Islamic groups under various and at times changing names are gaining influence through being courted by political parties, the army and the government. Some are even forming their own political parties, although with limited success thus far.
The army continues to follow a policy of distinguishing between 'good' Taliban [in Afghanistan] and 'bad' Taliban [operating in Pakistan], which is copied by the government. As long as the policy of distinguishing does not change, radical Islamic groups will increase in influence, not least by running thousands of madrassas [Islamic schools].
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump hosted Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, at a White House lunch in June. He announced that Pakistan’s tariff was reduced to 19%.
The newly established bond between the U.S. and Pakistan appears to have a financial element, reported the Christian Science Monitor. With around 25 million active cryptocurrency users, Pakistan is estimated to be in the top 10 countries worldwide for crypto adoption. Shortly before the India-Pakistan conflict this past April, Pakistan’s Crypto Council signed an agreement with World Liberty Financial, a firm in which the Trump family holds a 60% stake.
Also on the table are Pakistan’s mineral wealth and oil reserves. In July, President Trump took to his Truth Social platform to announce that he had signed a deal to develop Pakistan’s oil reserves.
However, the U.S. administration should reconsider its rapprochement with the Pakistani regime. Due to its rigged, undemocratic elections, its support for Islamic terror groups in and outside of Pakistan, and its rampant corruption as well as its systematic persecution against ethnic and religious minorities, Pakistan is not only a bad partner for the U.S., but a long-term, destructive enemy force for the entire West.