Imran Khan Goes for New Elections
By Nayyer Ali MD
Prime Minister Imran Khan was supposed to serve a five-year term followed by scheduled elections next summer, but all that was upended by a political drama that has seized Islamabad for the last several weeks. Khan was in danger of being ejected as Prime Minister if he failed to demonstrate that he had majority support for his government in the National Assembly. This is a feature of parliamentary systems that does not occur in presidential systems as the United States uses. Here if you are elected in President, no one can turn you out before your four years are up.
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In parliamentary systems, especially the ones in which a coalition of parties come together to form the government, the ruling majority can be broken if some of the members of parliament (MNAs in Pakistan) decide to break ranks and turn on the Prime Minister. This is called a “vote of confidence” and can be called by the opposition depending on the circumstances and the laws of that particular country.
In Pakistan, Khan’s PTI party did not win an absolute majority of the National Assembly in 2018. His was the largest party, but to get the majority, he needed several smaller parties such as the MQM and PML-Q to join with him. Even with that he had a narrow majority. The PML-N (Sharif clan), PPP (Bhutto-Zardari family) and JUI-F (Islamist religious party) combined lacked the numbers to stop Khan from forming a government. But they have been attacking his rule since 2018 and tried every maneuver to bring his government down and force new elections.
These steps had failed for almost four years, but in the last month the political situation changed. The opposition parties, who normally despise each other, decided to come together and break Imran Khan’s coalition. The plan was to hold a no-confidence vote that Khan would lose, forcing him to resign. Normally in most parliamentary democracies, when a government loses a no-confidence vote this results in elections to allow the people to decide who should govern. But the opposition had other plans. They wanted Khan to leave but not to have new elections. Instead, they would cobble together a bare majority that would then elect Shabaz Sharif, brother of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, as the Prime Minister. The idea that the PPP would vote for a Sharif to be Prime Minister is bizarre, but politics makes strange bedfellows as the saying goes.
Why would the smaller parties break with Imran Khan and vote Sharif into power? This was basically straight up bribery. Parties were offered all sorts of inducements to join with the opposition. In addition, a handful of PTI MNAs were also threatening to vote against Imran Khan. The Pakistani constitution has an amendment from 2010 that prohibits “floor-crossing” where a party member votes against his party’s stand on an issue, and the PTI argued to the Supreme Court that this meant PTI MNAs could not vote against Imran Khan. But the Court ruled against them, basically stating that the MNAs were free to vote as they choose, with the PTI then able to eject them from the party after they voted. But by then the deed would be done and Khan would be out.
The big question is where the people of Pakistan are on this issue. Khan appears to retain significant popular support despite high inflation which has been hard on many Pakistanis. He is seen by many as a true patriot who wants what is best for Pakistan, while the older Sharif and Bhutto family-based politics is seen as corrupt and self-serving. Khan did in fact hold several large rallies where sizable numbers showed up, while the rallies of the opposition have been feeble at best.
By April 3, it looked like Khan was doomed as he no longer had a majority of the MNAs. It was here he pulled a rabbit out of the hat. He had the Speaker of the House reject the motion for a vote of no-confidence and instead dissolved the National Assembly and called for new elections. This left the opposition stunned and confused.
Elections are now to be held within 90 days, and a caretaker government will assume power to oversee the election. This is going to be a dramatic moment in Pakistan’s political development. If Khan can win an absolute majority of the seats, he will return to power in a much stronger position and with a fresh five-year mandate. But if the opposition can hold the PTI vote down then a weak coalition government will be the result. Pakistan has a first past the post system for electing MNAs, so even if the PTI only wins 35% of the vote in a district, if the rest of the vote is badly fractured among multiple parties, the PTI candidate will win the seat. PML-N is probably the party best positioned to challenge PTI, but it will be hard-pressed to win a majority. The opposition parties, actually, are afraid of elections, as they know none of them are wildly popular.
