Deeper implications of Pakistan election verdict

Pakistan's emerging election results have deepened the political crisis, with implications for civil-military relations, democracy, and the economy.

Pakistan’s emerging election results have deepened the political crisis in India’s most important neighbour, with implications for the civil-military relationship, the future of democracy and the dire economic situation internally, and Islamabad’s relationship with Washington DC, New Delhi and the rest of the world externally.

Party banners of election candidates from political parties are displayed on a street in Lahore. (AP)

At the root of it is a simple question. Will a bruised House — aka the Army led by General Asim Munir — succeed in engineering a political outcome it wants by keeping Imran Khan’s loyalists out of the governance structure? Or will the voice of the electorate whose preferences for a ruling arrangement that has a strong role for those loyal to the Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) be accommodated, even if it is unpalatable to the establishment?

To be sure, the final results aren’t in. But conversations with a set of experts on Pakistan — America-based academics, a former Pakistani official, and former Indian officials — indicates that in what is clearly now a zero-sum game between Khan and Munir, the latter will prevail. The question is the terms on which the army prevails, the nature of the political arrangement it can engineer, the extent to which it will go in shaping this outcome, and the risks that come with excluding a popular political force out of the power structure?

It doesn’t help that the political crisis has come at possibly the worst time for Pakistan. It needs another International Monetary Fund (IMF) package to overcome its dismal economic situation in just a few months. It continues to face an adverse security climate, largely due to the activities of the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan, also called the Pakistani Taliban, comfortably ensconced in Afghanistan. And it is in the middle of a careful foreign policy balancing act where it is seeking to mend ties with the US, which isn’t keen on Khan either but wants to be true to its stated preference for credible elections, keep up its engagement with China and maintain relative status quo with India.

The context and outcome

In the long tradition of Pakistan military either directly running the country, or ever since Pervez Musharraf’s exit, indirectly exercising power by having a convenient civilian face while retaining control of key security and domestic policies, the army picked Imran Khan as its favoured one in the last election.

The script went awry. Khan developed his own political base and began entertaining dreams of political autonomy. He took on the army establishment internally and the US externally. The military leadership stepped in to oust him and craft a political coalition of Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League and the Asif Ali Zardari-Bilawal Bhutto’s Pakistan’s People’s Party. Khan continued to mobilise his supporters and mount a political challenge. His protests and the violence they sparked gave enough room for the army to crack down, arrest and implicate him in multiple cases including through the judiciary, get PTI off the ballot leaving its candidates to contest independently, bring Sharif back home, and wait for the electoral process to legitimise the new coalition and push Khan to the margins in his prison cell.

But as one Washington DC based Pakistan observer said, “The other side gets a vote too. And in this case, the Pakistani people got a vote.”

Explaining the emerging trends in the election, Niloufer Siddiqui, assistant professor of political science at the University at Albany - State University of New York and author of Under the Gun: Political Parties and Violence in Pakistan, said, “While much remains to be seen over the coming hours and days, the results that have emerged so far clearly show that the PTI over-performed relative to expectations. Given the magnitude of what the PTI was up against, it is nothing short of remarkable that people nonetheless cast their votes in favour of PTI-backed candidates. To me, this shows the limits of election engineering and the potential emergence of a politicised citizenry that is still willing to show up to make their voices heard.”

But this does not necessarily mean the final outcome will reflect the dominant public mood. The fact that there are already questions around Internet restrictions on polling day and reports of post-election rigging during the counting process; the fact that PTI’s loyalists have won as independents and not as a party and there is room within the constitution to nominate a set of members of the National Assembly from provinces; and the fact that there may still be enough room to carve out a non-PTI coalition including by breaking away independents and getting the other parties together gives Munir enough room to play.

Hussain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the US, said, “Imran Khan’s PTI did well in pushing back amid all restrictions and repression but did not win outright. Nawaz Sharif’s PML, which had the army’s backing this time, underperformed. PPP put in a strong performance too. The stage is now set for a coalition government. Coalition-making will put the army-led establishment back in the driving seat.”

There are risks in this approach of course. As Siddiqui said, “The PTI appears already to have won the public narrative, and it will be very difficult to overturn a sense that it was robbed of many seats.” Haqqani, too, recognised the perils ahead, but pointed out, “PTI could take to the streets but violent protests will only invite a more violent crackdown and might end up with a direct military takeover, as happened in Egypt after the Arab Spring. Consensus and compromise are the way forward but the parties, especially Imran Khan, have not been amenable to that.”

Eventually, it will boil down to how the two most critical players in Pakistan respond to the results. As the Washington DC-based observer who wished to remain anonymous said, “The question for Imran is whether he presses his advantage, goes to Parliament and courts or rallies his supporters to mount a popular agitation again? The question for Munir is whether he seeks to create a coalition that includes some PTI elements and buys himself time, or keeps PTI out even if there are risks of instability and more security challenges?”

Aparna Pande, the director of the initiative on future of India and South Asia at the Hudson Institute, has a clear answer. “The military establishment is bruised. It isn’t as dominant a player as it was under past generals. There is a social media revolution within Pakistan and a younger population. The search for a convenient civilian face who will do their bidding has been challenging. But don’t underestimate the brute power of the Army. The House always wins,” Pande said, predicting that Munir will throw his weight behind Sharif as PM, while keeping Sharif circumscribed and weaker than in his past terms.

The external implications

For the US, the emerging outcome in Pakistan puts it in a bind. Its stated policy was in favour of a credible election. Its unstated political preference was to see Imran Khan defeated and marginalised.

While it will wait for the final outcome, the US will eventually have to make a choice on whether it will stick to its “values” or let “interests” prevail — where in the current context, values will mean respecting domestic electoral processes and interests are broadly defined as having the army shepherd a relatively moderate and responsible political arrangement. The fact that the Pakistani diaspora in the US is overwhelmingly pro-Khan adds to the complication. Experts believe that the US will let the Pakistani domestic processes play out, but will be acutely conscious that stability is some distance away. As Haqqani said, “The US wanted Pakistan to have an election that resulted in a stable government. Only half of that wish has been fulfilled. Elections were held but stability in Pakistan is still elusive.”

For India, the election broadly means status quo for now. Pakistan may be too internally distracted for it to embark on adventurism on its eastern front. Khan’s widespread support indicates that the room for any future government to reset India policy is limited. “The most likely outcome is status quo on the India-Pakistan front. The best case for India is status quo and perhaps a renewal of a backchannel if Sharif comes to power. And the worst case is chaos, instability, emergency measures, a borderline coup, all of which will also complicate things for India,” said Pande.

With so much at stake, all eyes are now on Rawalpindi for its next move in an election where the establishment and a substantial segment of citizens are seemingly at opposing ends.