Developments in Pakistan: The Pre-election Scenario

Dr. Ashok Behuria, Senior Fellow and Coordinator, South Asia Centre delivered a talk on “Developments in Pakistan: The Pre-election Scenario” in the weekly Morning Meeting held on 1 January 2024. The meeting was moderated by Ms. Sneha M., Research Analyst, South Asia Centre. Ambassador Sujan R. Chinoy, Director General, MP-IDSA and Scholars of the Institute attended the event.

Executive Summary

Pakistan has witnessed extraordinary political turbulence for the last two years, ever since Imran Khan lost his premiership in April 2022. In the past almost two years, there has been political turmoil occasioned by aggressively partisan positions taken by the civilian political leadership, the military establishment and the judiciary of Pakistan. In the midst of this turmoil, the Election Commission of Pakistan has announced the date of General elections in Pakistan as 8 February 2024. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) are three major parties which are participating in the elections and none of these is likely to muster up a majority unless the votes are rigged. Among these, PTI appears more popular than the rest. However, the nomination papers of PTI’s top leadership including that of Imran Khan have been rejected and the party has challenged such rejection in the courts of law. Nawaz Sharif remains ineligible for contesting the polls even if his nomination has been accepted. PPP’s influence is largely limited to Sindh. Amidst all this it appears that post-elections, whatever be the results, the country is headed for political uncertainty. .

Detailed Report

In her opening remarks, Ms. Sneha offered a brief overview of the upcoming General Elections in Pakistan and said that political turmoil in Pakistan was not new. She said that the current state of affairs was due to the intensity with which the establishment has targeted Imran Khan.

Dr. Ashok Behuria started the presentation by elaborating on the role of democracy in Pakistan’s politics. He said that since the creation of Pakistan, it never had real democracy and there was always a clear stamp of the army on politics in the country. The upcoming elections seem to have been politically engineered by the army to lead the country to a state where the winning dispensation would not be anti-establishment. The army has created all kinds of obstacles for Imran Khan and allowed Nawaz Sharif to come back to Pakistan and campaign for his party, PML-N, which is now being touted as the King’s party. Imran Khan’s nomination has been rejected by the Election Commission of Pakistan and many of the top leaders of the PTI have been arrested and their nominations rejected. Despite all this and circulation of facts in the media casting aspersions on his character and integrity, Imran remains very popular among the people, he said.

Dr. Behuria suggested three possible scenarios: (i) Nawaz Sharif’s party would manage to form and lead a coalition; (ii) a hung house with parties pulling in different directions; and (iii) Imran Khan’s PTI would win a majority. In the first two cases, he said the army will be assured of its continued hegemony while Imran Khan is unlikely to stay quiet and, in all likelihood, demonstrate his nuisance potential on the streets. In the third scenario, he said, if the army finds it difficult to stop Imran, and fails to split his party and stitch together a coalition, it may either stage a coup or continue with a caretaker government or a neutral government of experts. In all these three cases, he concluded Pakistan was heading for political uncertainly.

Throwing light on the way the elections were being seen by Pakistan watchers outside, he said that the US, which was very critical of the process of upcoming elections in Bangladesh, did not appear too bothered about the way the elections were being curated by the army in Pakistan. China, he said, had distanced itself from the process and was watching it unfold in its own way. China may be more comfortable with a system where the army and civilian government would work together and it may be more comfortable with Nawaz’s party rather than with Imran Khan, who had in the past raised his voice against opacity in Chinese contracts with Pakistan.

Chronic political instability and a worsening internal security situation might provide further fuel to the army’s ongoing tactic to use terror as an instrument to push up terrorism in Kashmir and divert popular attention towards India. Dr. Behuria pointed out that the army leadership had not so far reacted to Nawaz Sharif’s statements that Pakistan should seek normalisation and reconciliation with India, which suggested that if Nawaz’s party were to return to power, there was a possibility of restarting of engagement between the two countries. However, it was counter-intuitive to find the army encouraging Nawaz to make such conciliatory statements, while it was orchestrating attacks in Rajouri and Poonch sector, which is creating bad blood between the two countries. According to him, the army, the judiciary, and the political leadership were clearly divided on domestic and foreign policy issues.

Dr. Behuria stated that at the internal level there was a clear division between pro- and anti-Imran forces, which was likely to add to political uncertainty in the days to come. It was interesting to see the Pakistani diaspora participating in the political campaign in the social media in favour of Imran Khan, he noted.

Questions and Comments

Ambassador Sujan R. Chinoy, Director General, MP-IDSA began his remarks by complimenting Dr. Behuria and commenting on his observations that the army would continue with its policy of orchestrating terror in India, even if there would be stability in Pakistan. He also said that it was unlikely that the army would go for a coup when it continues to retain its dominance in Pakistani politics.

After the remarks of the Director General a series of questions were asked about the role of women in leadership in Pakistan, the religious right wing, significance of the Kashmir issue, the role of United States in Pakistan elections, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baluchistan.

Dr. Ashok Behuria responded to the comments made by the Director General and questions raised by MP- IDSA scholars.

The Report has been prepared by Mr. Shailendra, Intern, South Asia Centre, MP-IDSA.