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Supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan's party block a road to protest against the results of the general election, at Baleli, on the outskirts of Quetta, Pakistan, February 12, 2024.
Is Pakistan’s military losing its grip on power?
Thousands of supporters of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan took to the streets and blocked highways in southwestern Pakistan on Monday to protest the results of last week’s chaotic election.
Pakistan faces an uncertain future given no party won a majority, and both Khan and his rival, Nawaz Sharif, have declared victory. Though independents primarily aligned with Khan won the most seats (101), there’s no viable path for them to form a governing coalition due to their lack of party affiliation. They ran as independents after being blocked from using his party’s symbol, a cricket bat, as an electoral image to help illiterate voters find them on ballots.
“The military-dominated Pakistani establishment is working to cobble together a coalition of mainstream parties that will be led by Nawaz Sharif's Pakistani Muslim League, with Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s Pakistan People's Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement likely serving as junior partners,” says Eurasia Group analyst Rahul Bhatia.
“Given the influence of the establishment in Pakistan,” candidates backed by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party “will almost certainly be kept out of power,” adds Bhatia, though some “are also likely to join the coalition parties.”
Still, the unexpected success of Khan’s independents marks a serious rebuke of the country’s powerful military, which has long played an outsized role in Pakistan’s politics. The fact that Khan’s supporters are protesting despite the military’s crackdown on his party “shows that many Pakistanis are no longer afraid of the establishment,” says Bhatia, and it indicates the army’s power is “gradually eroding.”
“While Pakistan will likely see widespread protests once the new government is announced, the military should be able to handle them,” says Bhatia.
Supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan's party gather during a protest demanding free and fair results of the elections in Karachi, Pakistan February 11, 2024.
Pakistan faces uncertain future after messy election
Following days of delay, the final results of Pakistan’s elections were announced on Sunday. Unexpectedly, independent candidates aligned with imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan took the most seats — 101 — outpacing the party of Khan’s rival, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which won 75 spots out of 266 seats up for grabs.
The election was marred by deadly violence and accusations that the nuclear power’s military rigged the process in Sharif’s favor. The shock result is unsettling both for the army, which plays an outsized role in Pakistani politics, and for Sharif, whose party was expected to win.
An uncertain future. Both Sharif and Khan have declared victory — the latter using AI to do so since he’s still behind bars – though no party won the majority needed to form a government.
Sharif has proposed forming a coalition – even though the ex-leader dismissed the idea on Election Day. Meanwhile, Khan’s supporters have taken to the streets, alleging that the vote was manipulated to deny them a majority. Khan loyalists are also mounting court challenges over the results, leaving Pakistan bracing for more political chaos in the days ahead.
Burqa-clad women arrive at a polling station to cast their vote as a police officer stands guard during general election, in Peshawar, Pakistan, February 8, 2024.
Who won Pakistan’s violent, chaotic election?
Pakistan went to the polls on Thursday in an election tainted by undemocratic practices – including a suspension of mobile phone services during voting – and violence.
Amid unexpected delays in the tallying of votes, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifdeclared victory Friday despite acknowledging that his party did not win enough seats to form a government. Sharif said his party won the largest share of the vote and that he would seek to form a coalition government. Meanwhile, reports indicated that independent candidates mostly affiliated with imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan won the most seats so far.
Before Election Day, Pakistan’s military was effectively accused of rigging the process in favor of Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League party with a rampant crackdown on Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party. Sharif and Khan are archrivals.
There’s “no doubt” that the delays in the vote count are part of a military-backed effort to ensure Khan-affiliated candidates don't come out on top, says Pramit Chaudhuri, Eurasia Group’s head of South Asia Research.
“PTI seems to have been able to get through the fog and connect its voters with their independent candidates,” says Chaudhuri, adding, “The results are the generals’ nightmare.”
Ongoing violence. At least 28 people were reportedly killed in Pakistan during voting on Thursday, and the violence continued into Friday, with at least two people killed in clashes between police and Khan supporters in the northwestern Shangla district.
Paramilitary soldiers stand guard along a road, ahead of the general elections in Karachi, Pakistan February 7, 2024.
Pakistanis vote but don’t decide who’s in charge
On Thursday, Pakistan is holding what should be one of the largest elections this year – but with the country’s most popular leader locked up, the military tilting the scales, and over two dozen killed this week in terrorist bombings, can it be called “democracy?”
The background: Since independence from Britain in 1947, no Pakistani prime minister has completed a full term. “The Establishment,” aka the military, quietly holds all the cards and has seized direct power four times. Civilian politics since the 1980s, has – broadly speaking – been dominated by the Bhutto clan and their archrivals, the Sharif family, with the military playing each side against the other.
But these two political dynasties broke the system in 2008, when they banded together to oust Pervez Musharraf, who had seized power in a coup nine years earlier. Their defiance led to the military backing Pakistan’s former World Cup-winning cricket captain Imran Khan and his newly formed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which went on to win the 2018 elections.
But that relationship quickly soured, leading to Khan’s 2022 ouster in a vote of no confidence, which Khan attributes to collusion between the military, traditional parties, and Washington (which denies involvement).
The vote: The election was delayed twice as the incumbent government maneuvered to exclude Khan from contention and suppress his party. Last summer, Khan was drawing a 60% approval rating, nearly twice that of his closest rivals. The government successfully detained Khan in May and has since sentenced him to decades in prison, banning him from holding office on charges his supporters call bogus.
Khan has tried to keep fighting. He held a virtual rally where an AI-generated avatar delivered his speech and created an app to guide his voters as his party’s candidates are forced to run as independents. But with the deck stacked so heavily against him, these efforts look doomed to fail.
Instead, three-time former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif – who recently returned from exile in a deal forged by the military and was cleared by Pakistan’s supreme court to run – is favored to win over main rival Bilawal Bhutto Zardari (recognize those names?).
We’ll be watching voter turnout as a sign of how many Pakistani are protesting Khan's exclusion, and for the possibility of more violence from extremist groups after nearly 1,000 Pakistanis were killed in terrorist attacks last year.Pakistan's self-exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif addresses a massive homecoming rally in Lahore, Pakistan, on Oct. 21, 2023.
Pakistan’s top court scraps lifetime election bans
It’s a good day to be former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. A court ruling just paved the way for him to run in next month’s general elections, by scrapping lifetime bans on politicians with prior convictions from running for office. The court has capped the ban at five years.
This is great news for Sharif, who resigned in 2017 after being found guilty of corruption and was blackballed. Sharif has been working to breathe new life into his political career after returning to Pakistan from self-imposed exile in late 2023.
Importantly for Sharif, the ruling does nothing for his archrival, former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who since last August has been serving a three-year sentence for graft.
Sharif’s party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, is considered a front-runner in the Feb. 8 elections, and he could potentially be elected PM for a fourth time. Meanwhile, Khan and his allies have accused the government of creating an unlevel playing field as the jailed ex-PM’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, faces a military crackdown.
Polling suggests Khan remains the most popular politician in Pakistan, but legal troubles and the crackdown have effectively left him sidelined with the elections just weeks away.Pakistan opposition holds mass rally calling for PM Khan to go
KARACHI • Tens of thousands of opposition supporters rallied in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi as part of a campaign to oust Prime Minister Imran Khan, who they accuse of being installed by the military in a rigged election two years ago.
Pakistan's ex-president indicted, former PM declared absconder
KARACHI (BLOOMBERG) - An anti-graft court in Pakistan indicted former President Asif Ali Zardari and declared ex-premier Nawaz Sharif an absconder in corruption cases, the latest move in multiple legal proceedings against the political opponents of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Pakistan's ex-PM Sharif to return to jail after bail rejected
ISLAMABAD (DPA) - Pakistan's Supreme Court on Friday (May 3) rejected a plea by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to extend his six-week temporary bail set to expire on Tuesday, officials said.