A former Pakistani prime minister has said the country is in a “deepening political and economic crisis” as fears grow elections due to be held by November may be delayed further.
His comments came after a tumultuous period in which the prime minister, Imran Khan, was removed from office and arrested as an opposition coalition took power, the controversial 2018-23 parliament, which witnessed rights violations, a crackdown on political opponents and increasing curbs on dissent, was dissolved and the power and influence of the military grew.
“We are in a deepening political and economic crisis in Pakistan. All political parties have been in power in the last term but they seemed to have no solution,” Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the prime minster from August 2017 to May 2018, told the Guardian.
He said the parliament – elected in 2018 and dissolved last month – had “lost its credibility, and the constitution has been violated”. In a farewell speech to the body he had called the worst in the country’s history, he demanded the formation of a “truth commission” to ascertain how Pakistan had reached such a point.
The same month, the outgoing government made the controversial announcement that a vote for a new body and new government could take place only after a new census was completed and constituency boundaries redrawn.
Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for south Asia at the Wilson Center thinktank, said that delaying the election was a major blow to the procedural aspects of democracy in Pakistan, which in recent years had been sound given that elections had happened on time.
He said a delayed election would also deepen political tensions. “The biggest challenge moving forward is the lack of trust – the social contract between state and society is fraying. If not addressed, that can have troubling consequences over the longer term.”
There is still uncertainty. The recently appointed caretaker prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, said in his first interview with Geo News that the Election Commission of Pakistan had the authority to announce the poll dates, though if the case went to court and it ruled for elections in 90 days he would act upon it.
The 2018 elections, beset by widespread allegations of vote rigging, brought the military-backed Khan to power as prime minister. He remained in office until April 2022, when he was ousted in a vote of no confidence after he fell out with Pakistan’s powerful military, but polls show he remains popular.
Shehbaz Sharif then replaced Khan as a candidate of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM). It was created with a 12-point agenda to ensure constitutional supremacy and free speech and to end the rule of military and security agencies from politics, but, like Khan, was accused of giving the military more space in politics.
Arifa Noor, a political analyst, said: “Since 2018, we have lost too much political space to the military establishment; that was true of the Imran Khan’s government, and we accused Khan for this but after Khan, the PDM hastened that process.”
The caretaker government has passed a controversial amendment to allow a serving military officer to become the chair of the National Database and Registration Authority. Noor said “the move makes it obvious that the ingress of military is increasing”.
Khan ruled through what observers called a “hybrid regime” that ceded space to the military establishment and the Sharif government became known as “hybrid 2.0”.
“I imagine hybrid 3.0 is just around the corner,” Kugelman said. “It looks like we’ve settled into a new normal. The military would continue to enjoy a political advantage.”
A senior PDM politician said it was a bitter truth that all political parties had surrendered to the powerful military and they believed the path to power was not “[the] vote but the military’s embrace”.
The politician, who requested anonymity, continued: “When we come into power, we do what the military says and compromise over democratic norms. And there is no democracy within major political parties even, be it dynastic [Bilawal] Bhutto Zardari’s PPP [Pakistan People’s party] or Sharif’s PML-N [Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz)] or Khan’s PTI [Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf], and how would one fight for democracy if he is not democrat?”
Khan’s rising popularity in electoral politics poses a challenge for the military establishment.
Khan was briefly arrested on 9 May, which resulted in mass protests and attacks on military installations. The images of angry protesters storming military facilities was a crystallisation of the deep levels of anger across the political divide and of the deep anti-military sentiment coursing through the Khan support base, who accused the military chief of ordering his arrest.
The military retaliated with a severe crackdown, destroying Khan’s party and arresting thousands of his workers, aides and supporters. Despite this, Khan’s party won mayoral election of Mathra town in Peshawar, north-western Pakistan.
Days before the dissolution of the assembly, Khan was arrested on 5 August, sentenced to three years in prison and barred from politics for five years over corruption charges.
“Democracy is in deep crisis in Pakistan and I don’t see any off ramps, especially if the election is rigged,” Kugelman said.
