Which way will Pakistan go?

Amitava Mukherjee

(The author is a senior journalist and commentator.

He can be reached at amitavamukherjee253@gmail.com)

The just-concluded election in Pakistan will raise more questions than it will solve. In fact, it will not solve any dilemma that Pakistan has been facing since the birth of the nation. There will be a coalition government. But even an alliance between the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) will not be able to attain the magic figure. Some other support will be necessary, which may come from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement securing 17 seats or from some other small parties that bagged another 17 seats. The army has called for a ‘unified government’. But the real unity will be far away as Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) has decided to stay away from any government-making exercise. After all, PTI-backed independents have won the largest number of seats.

The results of this election are special. It is very special indeed, and it certainly sends a message to the army and other institutions. The PTI was blacklisted as a political party. Imran Khan was sent to jail, and the judiciary, which cannot boast of any encouraging image in Pakistan, handed down two consecutive judgements providing for the long incarceration of Imran Khan and his wife. Another interesting judgement came out in this convoluted milieu. Just on the eve of the election, the judiciary scrapped the lifetime ban on contesting elections for people who had been convicted on criminal charges. The judgement obviously made it possible for Nawaz Sharif to stand as a candidate in the election. It is better not to offer any comment on the justifiability of the judicial verdict. But the timing of the verdict raises eyebrows.

In this fluid scenario in Pakistan, Imran Khan should be viewed not just as the leader of a political party but as a phenomenon, one that Pakistan has not witnessed since the demise of Mohammed Ali Zinnah. Since its birth, Pakistan has never come out as a monolithic state. Rather, it has been forced to view itself as a combination of ethnic loyalties: Punjabis for the state of Punjab, Sindhis for Sindh, Balochis for Balochistan, and Pushtoons for the North West Frontier Province, which is now called Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his daughter Benazir did break this block. Both of them were taken as leaders in central Punjab. But Imran’s case becomes different because of the scale of protests against the army-backed dispensation. Now, for the first time, there have been pockets of protests, big and small, all over Pakistan against Imran’s incarceration, cutting across ethnic loyalties. Ethnically, Imran is a Pathan. Khyber Pukhtunkhowa is his natural constituency. It is almost axiomatic that this province would witness big protests. It did. But the most noteworthy thing is that central Punjab, the base of the PML (Nawaz) party, witnessed demonstrations demanding Imran’s release and stopping the harassment meted out to him. In Sindh, the Urdu-speaking people came out in support of the deposed prime minister. In Balochistan, there were also widespread protests.

The army should have taken note of it and reevaluated its stance on Imran, who is gradually coming out, although still embryonically, as some sort of unifying force. It will not be an overstatement to say that one can visualise the first embers of a thing called Pakistani nationalism in these all-ethnic protest marches. This could have been an important development in the sub-continental scenario because a feeling of one nationhood could have weaned Pakistan away from a security-centric seized mentality. But this would have been a thing the army would loathe most as it means dismantling of the vice, like holding the General Headquarters—the other way the army top brass is called in Pakistan—enjoys in all walks of life in Pakistan. But the spirit is not expected to die because not only the PTI but also the PTI-backed independents who have won are expected to continue with their agitational path, which in turn would keep the nationhood spirit alive.

Another tricky question proving to be thorny in the flesh of the army and the coalition government will be the question of electoral reforms. Central Punjab has the maximum number of seats in the national assembly, and any political party not doing well in this region cannot hope to acquire power in Pakistan. Now, central Punjab is the area where Nawaz Sharif and his PML (Nawaz) have their bases. As the PML (Nawaz) is a votary of unitary politics, it will always oppose any dilution of central Punjab’s numerical superiority in the national assembly. In the past, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Benazir, and Imran Khan won the maximum number of seats in central Punjab on their way to becoming prime ministers. But as the PTI is visualising a well-spread support base all over the country, it may press for the delimitation of parliamentary constituencies in the future only to make central Punjab less important in the Pakistani polity and thus make the path more troublesome for the PML (Nawaz). This will also be an area of confrontation with the army, as it draws the maximum number of its officers’ corps from the middle-class families of central Punjab.

For the moment, the army has won in its tussle with political parties. Shahbaz Sharif, and not Nawaz Sharif, having been tipped to become the next Prime Minister of Pakistan, proves it. Nawaz had always had a bumpy relationship with the army, while Shahbaz is rumoured to be a ‘favourite boy’ of the GHQ. Just take note of the things Nawaz Sharif said after his return from London in December last year. A PTI creed from Lahore dated December 20, 2023 described Sharif as saying: “Today where Pakistan has reached (referring to the chaotic economic conditions of his country) this is not done by India, the US or even Afghanistan. In fact, we shot ourselves in the foot. They (a clear reference to the army) imposed a selected government on this nation by rigging the 2018 polls, which led to the suffering of the people and the downfall of the economy.”

Nawaz Sharif did not spare the judiciary. “The judges garland them (the reference is easy to understand—it is the army top brass) and legitimise their rule when they break the constitution. When it comes to a prime minister, the judges stamp his ouster. The judges also approve the dissolution of parliament,” the former Pakistan Prime Minister thundered.

Nawaz Sharif is the sworn enemy of the Pakistani army. He has been dethroned thrice and grapevine has it that Pervez Musharraf, the former Chief of the Pakistan army, had  kept Nawaz Sharif, the then Prime Minister of the country, in the dark when the former had planned and executed his botched up Kargil invasion. This year, until the very last moment, Nawaz’s name was in circulation in national and international media as the next Pakistani Prime Minister. Even the PML (Nawaz) has not come up with a sufficiently acceptable explanation for this sudden volte face-dropping Nawaz Sharif’s name for the post of Prime Minister and instead pushing up Shahbaz for the same position. It will not be unreasonable to conclude that the army is behind it.

Pakistan is in a very difficult situation now. It is plagued by high inflation. A large number of lower and middle-class people are making both ends meet only because of remittances from their relatives abroad. The actual shape of the economy can be understood by the fact that around 12.6 percent of the country’s GDP comes from remittances by overseas Pakistanis.

It will be realistic not to hope for a better turnaround for Pakistan in the near future.