Pakistani Politics on the Move Before 2018 Election
With elections looming, the political chaos within the country is likely to intensify.
Six months – that is how much time there is between January 4 and July 15.
The first date was when the Trump administration announced that it would suspend most military assistance to Pakistan because of the country’s tardiness in combating militant movements, including the Taliban, that are making trouble for the United States in Afghanistan. The announcement came a few days after U.S. President Donald Trump’s first tweet of the year: “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit.”
The second date – July 15 – is the scheduled day of Pakistan’s next general election. Pakistan’s foreign policy, including its relations with the United States, China, and India, could play a role in the results of the election, but domestic economic, ethnic, and security concerns should not be discounted. As the election creeps closer over the next six months, we’ll see Pakistani politics writhe in anticipation.
Understandably, Trump’s comments led to a furor in Pakistan. Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif, a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N), called the United States “a friend who always betrays.” And a major rival of the PML-N, the Pakistan Movement for Justice, or Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), went even further. Its leader Imran Khan released a statement that it was “time for Pakistan to delink from the U.S….[including the removal of ] excessive U.S. diplomatic, non-diplomatic and intelligence personnel from Pakistan.” Khan also said that Trump’s tweets were part of a U.S. strategy of “deliberate attempts to humiliate and insult the Pakistani nation.”
Yet, rhetoric aside, it is unlikely that the new U.S. policy toward Pakistan will change the latter’s behavior. As Ankit Panda noted in The Diplomat, “the core problem for the United States has long been convincing Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment that it should bring its perceived interests, which include destabilizing Afghanistan and keeping the heat up at the disputed border with India, in line with those of the United States.” While the new U.S. policy may affect $1.3 billion in aid to Pakistan, China is investing up to $57 billion in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a series of infrastructure projects running from Xinjiang to the western Pakistani port of Gwadar. In short, American leverage over Pakistan is limited.
However, this all being said, China cannot yet provide Pakistan with the most modern weapons technology, nor can its prestige compare with that of the United States on the international level. It is likely that after making some cosmetic changes and symbolic arrests, Pakistan will attempt to mend fences with the United States, perhaps through stroking Trump’s ego, or by capitalizing on some regional crisis, as Zia ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf both did in the past in order to regain capital with the United States.
The U.S. president’s tweets, and American foreign policy in general, are not the main driver of politics in Pakistan, however. Even more than usual, domestic politics have taken a chaotic turn. The attempts of the PML-N and PTI to rhetorically one-up each other in response to Trump is part of a pattern by which both parties, as well as a third major party, the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), are seeking to maximize their appeal to the people of Pakistan in the run up to the general election.
For most of the past five years, Pakistani politics has been dominated by Nawaz Sharif of the PML-N and his family. He served as prime minister twice in the 1990s, before his overthrow by Pervez Musharraf in a military coup in 1999. Sharif returned from exile just before the end of the Musharraf government, despite the fact that both Musharraf, and his main democratic rival, Benazir Bhutto, did not want him to do so. The Sharif family is especially prominent in the province of Punjab, where Nawaz’s brother, Shahbaz Sharif, is chief minister.
Nawaz Sharif was disqualified for life from the office of prime minister in July 2017 by the Supreme Court of Pakistan on charges of corruption and stashing away funds; the allegations were revealed by the Panama Papers in 2015. Though he is now out of office, he’s believed to still guide his party, and the current prime minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. While there is probably some truth to the allegations, the consensus view is that the judicial coup was instigated by members of Pakistan’s powerful military and intelligence services, who view the powerful and popular Sharifs as a threat. Furthermore, Pakistan fared better between 2013 and 2018 than during the 2008 to 2013 period when the rival PPP, led by Benazir Bhutto’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, was in power. Under Sharif, there was a reduction of terrorism in Pakistan. The PML-N government also focused on infrastructure improvements and achieved improvements in overall economic conditions in the country. Sharif obtained investment from China and tried to reduce tensions with India.
According to Pakistani analysts, this is a threat to the dominance of the military. One told Deutsche Welle that “the military wants a weak government after the next general election. The generals believe that a strong government and a popular leader can challenge their immense power.” Another analyst added that “Sharif, if he comes to power again, is likely to rein in Islamist groups and once again try to normalize ties with India and Afghanistan, because he believes that these jihadists and religious parties are controlled by the military to keep civilian governments under pressure.”
The main opposition parties have all joined together in supporting the anti-Sharif cause, demonstrating how big a threat the Sharifs are to most other actors in Pakistan. On January 17, PTI leader Imran Khan and PPP leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari come together with a popular cleric, Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, who is possibly backed by the military, to stage a joint rally in Lahore, the PML-N stronghold. As was the case with protests against Musharraf in 2008, it seems as though all the opposition parties want to get rid of a common enemy before turning on each other.
Can the PML-N be dislodged from power in the upcoming elections? Anything can happen in as volatile a country as Pakistan in six months, so it is hard to tell. The PML-N, on the basis of its popularity and base in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, has a shot at winning another election. However, Imran Khan’s PTI can give the PML-N a run for its money.
Despite most of Pakistan’s major political parties ostensibly being non-ethnic, in practice, this has not been the case. The PPP commands dispropriate loyalty among Sindhis, and is thus in power in Sindh. Likewise, the PTI has consolidated the Pashtun vote, and is now fairly entrenched in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The PML-N commands the loyalty of Punjabis, and thus enjoys a comfortable dominance in Punjab. Various polls suggest that these parties are likely to remain in power in provincial elections, which will also be held concurrently with the national election. It remains to see if this regional entrenchment will map onto the federal level in Pakistan, though there is evidence to believe otherwise.
While the PPP may remain in power in Sindh and it is strong in rural areas of the province, the party is weak in big cities like Karachi. Furthermore, its record is dismal; it has a reputation for misgovernance. Its leader, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, is a 29-year-old rookie and dynast. On the other hand, Imran Khan’s PTI won more votes than the main opposition party, the PPP, in 2013’s general election, though this translated into fewer seats in the National Assembly. Khan is a popular and charismatic former cricketer with name recognition across Pakistan.
Like figures ranging from the populist Donald Trump to the centrist Emmanuel Macron, Imran Khan has cultivated an image as an outsider who could bring much needed fresh blood into a political system dominated by the same few actors for decades. And, just to be safe, Khan has cultivated cultivated zamindars, or landowners, the military (which may be favoring him as a way to get rid of the Sharifs and because he is against U.S. airstrikes against the Taliban, a key player in Pakistan’s policy to dominate Afghanistan), and even the Taliban. Certainly, the PTI’s prospects are relatively strong, as it has done a good job improving hospitals, police efficiency, and education for women in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while articulating a vision to replicate these achievements across Pakistan. However, it remains to be seen if any policy by any government can be implemented in a place as inefficient and dominated by vested interests as Pakistan is.
Pakistan still has over five months to go until its election, but the political chaos within the country is likely to intensify, possibly reaching paralyzing levels, as different factions position themselves to gain the most advantage before the vote.