Pakistan poll turns to farce as army picks Sharif
Once vilified, arrested and imprisoned by the military, former prime minister is in favour and favourite to win
AS NAWAZ Sharif ended his run for today’s general election, the long-standing giant of Pakistan’s political landscape appeared to be going through the motions.
The three-time former prime minister’s campaign was slow to get going and he delivered only short speeches, raising the impression he expects a coronation rather than a close fight.
For all the flag waving, observers say political campaigning has lacked its normal dynamism.
He told supporters at his final rally, in Kasur, that they were about to witness the “dawn of prosperity” after his party’s success. He told the crowd: “Pakistan was happy in Nawaz Sharif ’s tenure and, God willing, I will bring back this happiness to Pakistan.”
If Mr Sharif believes voting in the world’s fifth most populous country is a foregone conclusion, then reasons for his confidence are not hard to find.
His main rival, Imran Khan, has been in prison for months and was this week buried further under a continuing avalanche of criminal sentences. Mr Khan’s party says it is persecuted by the authorities to such an extent that it can barely campaign. Party workers are arrested, rallies forbidden and its leadership jailed.
The situation marks an extraordinary reversal of fortune for the two adversaries compared with the last election, held in 2018.
Back then, it was Mr Khan in the ascendant and Mr Sharif who was harried and recently imprisoned. Their positions are widely believed to have swapped as their relations with Pakistan’s military flipped.
While the country is nominally a democracy, it is one that is often rigged by a military leadership which is the country’s most potent political force, according to politicians, diplomats and analysts. Pakistan’s military strongly denies meddling in politics, but over the decades, the generals have sometimes ruled directly as dictators, and, at other times, been accused of backing favourites and hobbling opponents from behind the scenes.
No civilian prime minister has ever finished a five-year term, but threeout-of-four military dictators were able to rule for more than nine years each.
In 2018, the generals were seen as favouring Mr Khan over Mr Sharif, but in 2024 they have switched and are accused of using the full weight of the state to ensure the former cricketer cannot win.
To underline the violence implicit in politics in this part of the world at least 28 people were killed yesterday by two separate bomb blasts outside the offices of election candidates in south-western Pakistan.
There have been multiple security incidents in the run-up to the vote, with at least two candidates shot dead and dozens more targeted in attacks across the country.
“The aim of today’s blasts was to sabotage the election,” said Jan Achakzai, caretaker information minister for Balochistan province, where the blasts happened. “Despite today’s blasts... people of Balochistan will come out tomorrow without any fear,” he added. The first improvised explosive device killed 16 people near the office of an independent candidate in Pishin district, around 30 miles from the city of Quetta. A second device killed 12 people near the election office of a candidate for the Islamist Jamiat Ulema-e-islam-f (JUI-F) party in the city of Killa Saifullahi.
On the political intrigue, Michael Kugelman, South Asia’s institute director at the Wilson Centre think tank said: “We’re witnessing the latest sequel of a movie we’ve seen so many times before.
“It’s a confrontation between the military and a political party that it doesn’t want to take power, with significant levels of repression using similar tactics – arrests, jailings, intimidation, and pressure on the courts and media to take steps that work against the targeted party.”
Mr Khan himself was jailed for three years for corruption in August 2023
‘People are very afraid actually. They know that they will be victimised. The military have created an atmosphere of fear’
and a flurry of other cases have since followed. In recent days there has been a seven-year sentence for illegally marrying his wife and a 10-year sentence for leaking classified documents. Mr Khan says all the cases have been politically motivated.
He has been banned from running for office himself and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-insaf (PTI) party says it has been harassed in a government crackdown. Much of the party’s senior leadership is in prison, and activists and candidates have been arrested.
Zulfi Bukhari, a close aide to Mr Khan, said the election campaign had been “anything but free and fair”. He said PTI campaign workers had been harried and the party had been blocked from holding rallies.
He said: “Every time we have gone out on the road, there have been a tonne of arrests. The majority of our candidates are still in hiding.” The United Nations earlier this week decried “harassment, arrests and prolonged detentions” of PTI leaders and supporters.
Anwaar ul-haq Kakar, Pakistan’s interim prime minister for the election process, rejects such criticism and strongly denies that the PTI is being illegally persecuted, or that the election is unfair. He said those arrested and jailed had been convicted of taking part in riots. He also said that allegations of military influence on politics were “very overstated”.
Yet PTI supporters said they were living in fear and unable to campaign. Traders at one Islamabad market said they had tried to hold a PTI rally only for the police to turn up.
Sajjad Hussain, a trader who sells winter clothing, said: “If any of his supporters come out, the police come and arrest them. How can you say this election is fair?”
Mohammad Azim, another trader, said his own brother had been arrested while canvassing for Mr Khan’s party and held for three days.
He said: “People are very afraid actually. They know that they will be victimised. They have created an atmosphere of fear.”
With its back against the wall, the PTI has resorted to an increasingly online campaign relying on social media platforms such as Tiktok to mobilise its youthful supporters. The party maintains strong grassroots support, and there is a mood of defiance among many PTI voters.
One official said: “Even if the election is rigged, what happens on polling day still isn’t certain.”
Yet when polling opens, given the scale of the action against the PTI, the odds appear strongly against Mr Khan’s party.
Mr Sharif ’s apparent place in the military’s good books is meanwhile in contrast to tensions during much of his career and the run up to the 2018 election.
A businessman from a prominent industrialist family, he was once a firm favourite of the generals, while his charisma charmed supporters.
He was then ousted from his second term in a 1999 military coup and sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of hijacking and terrorism, and also convicted of corruption.
He returned to Pakistan from exile in Saudi Arabia in 2007, and was elected prime minister for a third time in 2013. He apparently “fell out” with the military again after criticising their security policies. He was removed from power in 2017 and jailed following a corruption investigation related to the Panama Papers.
That paved the way for Mr Khan himself to take power in 2018 in an election where he was widely seen to have the army’s backing. Mr Sharif ’s Pakistan Muslim League party was flung into opposition and pursued through the courts.
Yet Mr Khan’s honeymoon ended in 2021 when he allegedly quarrelled with the army chief over the appointment of the country’s spy chief.
Months later, Mr Khan was ousted in a parliamentary vote of no confidence that he alleges was backed by the US in a “foreign conspiracy”. Both the US and the military say the allegations are nonsense.
Mr Khan continued to rail against the army leadership from opposition until in May 2023, he was arrested and his angry supporters attacked military installations. Such attacks are thought to have crossed a red line for Gen Asim Munir, the army chief, and since then the crackdown on the PTI has intensified.
As Mr Khan’s star fell, Mr Sharif was allowed to return from exile and legal hurdles against him standing in the elections were removed. Whoever wins must govern a country in a severe financial crisis with sharp inflation and in need of painful economic reform.
If Mr Sharif wins, he could either become prime minister, or anoint his younger brother, Shehbaz. If Mr Sharif were to take the top job, given his previously tempestuous relations with the military, observers say it is unclear how long his own honeymoon would last. Many senior military officers who remember past squabbles are thought to dislike and distrust him. If they fall out again, the merry-go-round will begin again.
Mr Kugelman said: “It’s extremely harmful. It corrodes democracy, because it enables a powerful, unelected force – the military – to remain a critical and often repressive powerbroker.
“And these ongoing confrontations distract policymakers from the issues that matter the most: economic stress, terrorism threats, and worsening climate change effects.”