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A fruit vendor waits for customers in front of campaign posters of a political party, ahead of general elections, in Karachi, Pakistan, on Feb. 1, 2024.
Pakistan holds elections without Imran Khan
Resigned to the absence of the country’s most popular politician, Pakistanis will vote in elections on Thursday to choose their next government. Imran Khan, a former cricket star and prime minister, has been convicted on charges widely seen as trumped up by Pakistan’s powerful military and barred from holding public office. Though Pakistan is officially a democratic republic, its military plays an outsized role in the country’s politics, engineering elections in favor of its preferred leaders.
We asked Eurasia Group’s Rahul Bhatia and Pramit Pal Chaudhuri to explain.
What is the reason for the crackdown on Khan and his party?
Since Pakistan’s independence in 1947, the military has directly ruled the country for about three decades while calling the shots from behind the scenes for most of the rest of the time. It had previously favored Khan and his populist Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party, hoping they would serve as a counterweight to Pakistan’s two traditional parties, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). These two parties had cooperated to re-establish a civilian-led democracy in the country in 2008, and the military saw them as a threat to its pre-eminence.
While the military helped secure the PTI’s victory in 2018, Khan soon fell out with his benefactors. Four years into his term, Khan was removed from office through a no-confidence motion after the military grew weary of his poor handling of the economy, foreign policy blunders, and interference in military affairs. But Khan refused to go quietly and launched a street campaign against the new government. The situation escalated in May 2023, when Khan’s arrest on corruption charges prompted his supporters to take to the streets and attack military installations across the country, including the army headquarters. This was too much for the military, and it began a systematic crackdown on Khan and his party through a campaign of extrajudicial detentions, harassment, and intimidation.
How will the crackdown affect the election and its outcome?
The military’s crackdown has left the PTI fighting for survival. More than 10,000 PTI leaders and workers have been detained since May 2023. Its leader, Khan, has been incarcerated for leaking classified information and illegally selling state gifts; he is barred from holding public office for ten years. Pakistan’s election commission has disallowed most PTI candidates from contesting the polls and stripped the party of its ballot symbol. This is particularly harmful as 40% of Pakistan’s electorate is semi-literate, making it difficult for many PTI supporters to identify their candidates.
Meanwhile, authorities have cleared the legal obstacles for Nawaz Sharif, another former prime minister who had fallen out with the military in a previous term, to run for office. His PML-N is now expected to easily secure a parliamentary majority. Though Khan is the most popular politician in Pakistan, the PTI will struggle to get more than a handful of seats in the 336-member national assembly.
What accounts for Khan’s enduring popularity?
The former captain of the Pakistani cricket team, Khan was already a popular sporting icon before he entered politics. An astute politician, he has created a cult of personality around himself by mobilizing Pakistan’s new middle class, who have become disillusioned by the country's political process and the establishment parties (PML-N and PPP). Furthermore, his message of clean governance and his criticism of the IMF, the US, and even the military resonates with many urban poor who have been badly affected by high inflation and low economic growth. His popularity has risen even further since he was removed from office and arrested.
Do you expect unrest driven by Khan’s supporters around the elections? On a similar scale to that triggered by his arrest?
It is highly unlikely that there will be widespread protests similar to those in May 2023 following the election results. Despite Khan’s popularity, that of his party seems to have fallen lately. Many voters seem resigned to the fact that the elections will be skewed against the PTI, while Sharif’s PML-N is gaining support in his native Punjab. Areas where the PTI remains popular, such as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, north Punjab, and some northern urban areas, will probably experience some unrest. But the Pakistani security forces should be able to handle it without too much trouble.
What challenges will the next government face?
Addressing economic difficulties – nearly 40% of Pakistanis live below the poverty line and inflation is running at about 30% – will be the next government’s primary challenge. To do so it will need financial assistance. It will need to negotiate a new loan facility with the IMF. An agreement with the IMF has been made a prerequisite by Pakistan’s main external creditors – China, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar – to provide additional financial support.
A new IMF agreement will require the government to undertake difficult economic overhauls, including tax hikes, privatizations of state-owned companies, and reforms to its financial and power sectors. While a government led by Sharif may be able to carry this agenda to a degree, given how the election is being engineered in his favor, he may lack the political capital to see it through or handle any street protests that may follow. Overall, while a newly elected government will bring more stability to Pakistan, questions over its legitimacy will undermine its ability to govern.
Edited by Jonathan House, senior editor at Eurasia Group
Hard Numbers: Imran Khan’s AI dub, Turkey's AI sector boost, Danish death forecasts, IBM’s big bet
$100 million: One of Turkey’s largest venture capital firms is preparing to pour money into the region’s AI sector. Revo Capital is raising $100 million, which will go to AI-related startups in Turkey and throughout central Asia. Revo has found international appeal with investments into the Turkey-based delivery startup Getir, lamenting to Bloomberg that Turkish firms are often ignored by foreign investors.
6 million: Danish researchers claim that their new AI model, trained on a massive data set of 6 million Danish individuals, can predict early death better than insurance company actuarial tables. The researchers, based at the Technical University of Denmark, want to keep their model far away from the hands of insurance companies, but it could be used to help people better understand health and environmental risk factors in their lives.
$2.33 billion: IBM is making a $2.33 billion purchase to boost its AI offerings. The technology giant just announced that it reached a cash deal to buy two divisions of the German company Software AG. The units, called StreamSets and webMethods, are data management tools that IBM plans to integrate with its Watsonx AI data platform that it sells to business clients.
Pakistan's former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif prepares to release a pigeon in front of supporters in Lahore after returning from self-imposed exile on Oct. 21, 2023.
Nawaz Sharif returns to Pakistan
With national elections looming in January, Pakistan’s politics just got more complicated as fugitive former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returned Saturday from four years of self-imposed exile in London.
Sharif has been PM three times over the past 30 years. His first term ended by him being replaced by a military-backed president in 1993; his second saw him ousted in a coup in 1999, and his third saw Pakistan’s Supreme Court convict him of corruption in 2017. He then had his seven-year jail sentence suspended on medical grounds, permitting him to leave the country for treatment on the condition that he come back within four weeks, which he has not done until now.
Sharif flew into Islamabad on Saturday just days after he was granted protective bail, meaning he cannot be arrested before his next court appearance on Oct. 24. By later that day, his political ambitions were clear: Sharif flew to Lahore, where he told a public rally of tens of thousands of supporters that he would end unemployment, reduce inflation, revive Pakistan’s ailing economy, and “smash the begging bowl” to stop relying on foreign loans.
If he’s allowed to run, Sharif will face an uphill battle against ousted premier Imran Khan, who also faces legal constraints. Khan was jailed in August on corruption charges, which he is fighting, but a poll taken this summer showed that the flamboyant cricket-star-turned politician maintained a 60% approval rating despite his legal troubles.
What could Sharif’s return mean for Pakistan?Sharif sought improved relations with India, an issue that put him at odds with Pakistan’s military establishment. But Khan also lost the military’s support, leading to his ouster in 2022, and some analysts believe Pakistan’s army paved the way for Sharif’s return as the best hope for defeating Khan.
If Sharif prevails, Pakistan’s relations could improve with the west, but this prospect might be complicated by the Israel-Hamas war. Pakistan has been rocked by pro-Palestinian protests, the country has dispatched aid to Gaza, and Sharif’s son-in-law threatened Israel with jihad using his country’s nuclear weapons.
Expect plenty of fireworks in the months ahead as both Khan and Sharif try to fire up their bases by taking to Pakistan’s streets.
Supporters chant slogans as they gather for a protest following the arrest of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan, in Peshawar, Pakistan.
Imran Khan sentenced, Pakistan on edge
Former PM Imran Khan is bunking down in Pakistan’s notorious maximum security Attock prison after being found guilty of corruption. The court, which said he illegally concealed assets after selling state gifts, also banned the 70-year-old former cricket champ from running for office for five years. Khan may also lose the chairmanship of his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.
Khan denied the charges, claiming they were designed to prevent him from running for office in the next national election, which was scheduled for November but may now be delayed. Since being ousted in a 2022 no-confidence vote, Khan has remained Pakistan’s leading opposition figure, but his party has been severely weakened by the defection of dozens of key officials and the arrests of thousands of supporters.
Reaction from Islamabad to Washington. When Khan was arrested on unrelated charges in May 2023, clashes between demonstrators and police resulted in 12 injuries, one death, and the suspension of internet service. In anticipation of similar unrest, authorities imposed a seven-day ban on all public gatherings in several districts of Punjab and declared a high-security alert in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. But so far, despite Khan and PTI officials calling on supporters to peacefully protest, only scattered demonstrations have been reported.
Reaction from the US State Department was similarly muted, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying only that the US hopes “whatever happens in Pakistan is consistent with the rule of law, with the Constitution.”
What’s next? Khan’s lawyers plan to file an appeal, but if he remains barred from running, the next big test will be whether Khan’s PTI colleagues can mobilize the masses to vote in the next election.