August 10 , 2018
Naya Pakistan
On July 25 Pakistan carried out its national and provincial elections. In an expected but still stunning outcome, Imran Khan, the head of the political party he created over 20 years, the PTI, won a strong plurality, coming close to an outright majority in the National Assembly. The outgoing PMLN saw its fortunes sag throughout the country, but most importantly, in its heartland of Punjab, and with it the Sharif family finds itself out of power.
Imran Khan became famous for leading Pakistan to the Cricket championship with a win over England in 1992, and then created a well-known cancer hospital serving Pakistan in the memory of his mother. But he went further than sports and philanthropy and entered politics on a platform primarily of being anti-corruption. He used this to distinguish himself from the patronage machines of the PPP and PML-N that dominated Pakistani civilian politics in the 1990’s. While he got some support, he was never able to make much of a splash and his party routinely won little or nothing at election time, with Imran Khan often being its sole member in the National Assembly.
The PTI’s fortunes began to change in the early part of this decade as a new and rising generation of young urban Pakistanis flocked to the party. Khan continued to campaign on his anti-corruption platform, but this decade it achieved resonance with the electorate. While he finished second to the PML-N in the 2013 election, overall his party did very well, and won control of the Provincial Assembly in KPK.
The success set the stage for 2018. Compared to the near 8 million votes the PTI got nationwide in 2013, this time the party won almost 17 million votes. The PML-N dropped from 15 million to 13 million, while the PPP only managed 7 million, about the same as 2013. Because Pakistan does not elect its National Assembly by proportional representation but rather by the British system of first past the post in each district, the PTI was able to win 115 seats while the PML-N was cut down to 64 and the PPP only 43 seats. While this leaves the PTI a bit short of the majority to form a government, it will be able to do so by cobbling together about 20 independent MNAs that were elected and are not affiliated with any party. Another very important outcome is that it appears the PTI will be able to form the government in Punjab along with the Federal government.
The PTI victory should be rightly celebrated for expressing the will of the voters. The election was carried out peacefully and is the third consecutive election held since Musharraf gave up his political power and allowed a return to civilian rule. This further validates that the era of coups and martial law is over. But there is a military and judicial cloud over Imran Khan’s victory. There are many critics who say that the army was backing Khan over Sharif, and that together with the judiciary, gave Khan the edge he needed to win. Critics also allege that the army was engaging in some degree of suppression of the media to keep out stories that were pro-Sharif or anti-Khan. Nawaz Sharif was in fact ejected from power a year ago and forced to resign over the issue of corruption, as he was not able to provide the Supreme Court clear documentation of how his family came to acquire expensive London real estate over 20 years ago. The court then sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment while he was in London 2 weeks ago, but rather than avoid jail by staying overseas, he returned home and went to prison where he is awaiting bail so he can appeal his sentence.
The truth is a bit murky, but it is no secret that the army and Nawaz Sharif loath each other. It was the army under Musharraf that ejected him from power in 1998 when Musharraf carried out a coup, leading to 10 years of effective military rule. How much Khan owes his victory to the army and the Supreme Court is hotly debated.
What is not debated is that this election is a watershed for Pakistan. For the first time, Pakistan has an elected government that is not a patronage machine and a conduit for corruption. What Imran Khan must do now is actually deliver. His initial speech hit all the right notes. He mentioned a strong relationship with China, ending the war in Afghanistan, pursuing mutually beneficial relationship with the US, putting children in school and getting clean water to the whole nation. If he can make progress on these goals he will earn enormous credibility with the country.
There were other major developments in this election. The broad alliance of religious parties, known as the MMA, did horribly, winning only a handful of seats. The voters overwhelmingly rejected religion in politics. The PPP saw itself further shrivel into the party of rural Sindh, with almost no wins outside of that. Can Benazir’s son Bilawal resurrect the PPP and turn it back into a national party? That will be very difficult for him, unless he can bring the voters to think of the PPP as truly the party of the people, and not just a patronage vehicle for the Bhutto/Zardari clan. The phenomenon of local politicians that command the vote of the people based on personal loyalty and prominence, and perhaps feudal connections, has been a big part of Pakistani politics for decades. These individuals win whether they run as independents or as candidates for whatever party they wish to affiliate with. These “electables” are often a fickle group that moves with the tide and hopes to get into the winning coalition. What happened this time though was that many of the “electables” lost their elections. This may mean that feudal politics is finally being dismantled. Even a number of “electables” in Punjab, who switched over from PML-N to PTI in the weeks before the election (which some say was with the prodding of the military) lost their races. What Pakistan needs is a political system based on parties who represent clear ideas of how to run the country and what the priorities of the government should be, both domestic and foreign. Instead of voting for a family, voters should pick a party that represents their views. This election may have been a major step in that direction for Pakistan’s politics.
Imran Khan may owe some of his electoral success to the military, but he genuinely also has the support of millions of Pakistanis, and is popular with younger, urban voters, who want someone other than the Sharifs or the Bhuttos to run Pakistan, as has been the case since the 1970’s, other than during military rule. It would also be a grave error by the military to assume they have their very own errand-boy in Imran Khan.
Khan has his own ideas of running the country, and the validation of 17 million votes and a parliamentary majority is going to give him the platform on which to run the country. He needs, however, to tread carefully. My recommendation is to pursue domestic reforms, economic growth, and improve education and health. Don’t get into a confrontation with the army over Afghan or India policy, but try to slowly build consensus with them. The army remains powerful when it comes to issues of national security and foreign policy, and establishing true civilian supremacy over the military is going to take 10 or 20 years of successful governance by the civilians. It cannot be done in a day.
