The version of “Game of Thrones” currently being enacted in the Pakistani political theatre is no less exciting and unpredictable than what the original HBO blockbuster offered viewers the world over.
The fortunes of the dramatis personae—two former Prime Ministers and a general and the supporting cast—have changed dramatically in the past few years and might change again in the near future. How this will change the fate of the country remains the big question as Pakistan heads for elections next year. National and provincial elections are scheduled for February 11.
The most significant development is that a plan on which the Pakistani establishment has been working hard over the past months finally seems in place. The “minus-one” formula, as it is known in Pakistani political circles, is to keep former Prime Minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party’s chairman Imran Khan out of the elections.
Supporters of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at a rally to welcome their leader in Lahore on October 21. | Photo Credit: Anjum Naveed/AP
Imran, once Pakistan’s cricketing icon and a former protégé of the army, fell foul of the military establishment when he tried to challenge its supremacy. Now in jail, charged in multiple cases, Imran is likely to be there until the national and provincial elections are over. His bete noire and political rival, Nawaz Sharif, once a declared absconder, is now back in the country after a four-year self-imposed exile in London. Granted bail before he returned, the former Prime Minister landed in Lahore on October 21 under VVIP protocol amid large numbers of supporters from his Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), or PML(N), party. He promised to revive his party’s and the country’s moribund fortunes.
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Two days later, Imran and his close aide, former Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, were indicted by a special court under the Official Secrets Act for leaking a confidential document to a foreign media outlet. The plan to keep Imran out of the political reckoning also became clear from a September interview of Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar, widely seen as an army nominee.
After Imran Khan’s arrest, members of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf launched a violent protest, in Karachi on May 9. | Photo Credit: ASIF HASSAN/AFP
He told the Associated Press that fair elections could take place without Imran or hundreds of members of his party jailed on charges of unlawful activities such as vandalism and arson. Kakar said those in Imran’s party who did not participate in the protests following their leader’s arrest would be allowed to contest the elections. A number of senior leaders of the PTI were arrested when they held a countrywide protest in May against Imran’s arrest on corruption charges in the Al-Qadir Trust case.
Nawaz was also thrown out of power on corruption charges initiated by the army when he began to assert himself as the Prime Minister and challenged the military establishment. Now, Nawaz is crucial to the army’s “minus-one” formula. A three-time Prime Minister, he has been brought back to revive the PML(N), which has shrunk in the past years under Imran’s growing influence in Punjab and other parts of the country. Observers, however, believe that irrespective of how the PML(N) fares under Nawaz’s leadership, excluding Imran Khan, the most popular leader according to recent polls, will severely affect Pakistan’s democratic process. The new regime will also lack credibility and legitimacy as the true representative of the people.
Generals called the shots, always
Many may wonder, of course, whether Pakistan has ever had a fair election. Since its birth in August 1947, Pakistan has been ruled for nearly half its life by its generals. Most intervening civilian governments have served under the supervision of the army, which has always been the final arbiter on key policies, particularly in determining Pakistan’s approach to India, a country it continues to regard as an existential threat. No Pakistani Prime Minister has been able to complete a full five-year term. “The army wants to tell the people that no matter how popular a leader, the ultimate authority in the country is the military establishment,” says Sharat Sabharwal, a former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at a rally by supporters to welcome him back, in Lahore on October 21. He flew home from Dubai, ending four years of self-imposed exile in London. | Photo Credit: K.M. Chaudary/AP
Oxford-educated Imran was brought in by the former army chief, Qamar Javed Bajwa, as a replacement to Nawaz’s government in 2018. The army had hoped that Imran would be able to provide a clean administration, stabilise the economy that was facing a severe crisis, and normalise relations with India. More importantly, the top generals hoped Imran would be able to charm Washington and put relations with the US back on track. Although China has been supplying a wide range of weapons to Pakistan and is now its largest arms seller, the army is not as confident about Chinese weapons as of American ones. In recent years, Pakistan’s shift towards China has alienated the US, which sees China as the only country that can challenge its global hegemony.
Unease about US partnership with India
In addition, the US has developed a close strategic partnership with India, which has caused serious unease in the Pakistani establishment. India now has a wider choice to strengthen its military arsenal with arms from traditional ally Russia and also from a host of Western countries, including the US. It also means that Pakistan’s attempts to get US and Western support for the Kashmir issue in order to put pressure on India might no longer work. Moreover, cross-border terrorism, a traditionally favoured tool used by Pakistan against India, no longer gets global support. In these circumstances, improving ties with the US was extremely crucial for Pakistan. Imran, however, failed in all areas. In fact, his regular anti-US rhetoric only led to a worsening of relations with the US.
Pakistan-US relations had been going through a serious lack-of-trust phase since Osama bin Laden was found hiding in a safe house in Abbottabad, close to a Pakistan military garrison, before being killed in a US Navy Seal operation in 2011. Ties were further strained when the US realised that the Pakistan Army was actually strengthening the Taliban that was in a long war with the US for the control of Afghanistan. The fact that US troops had to make a hasty and humiliating retreat as the Taliban took over the country in 2021 did not improve matters. Imran visiting Moscow on the day Russian troops marched into Ukraine in February 2022 was perhaps the last straw.
Highlights
- As Pakistan prepares for general elections in 2024, the army’s priority seems to be to prevent a comeback by Imran Khan.
- Nawaz Sharif has been brought back to counter Imran Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf’s growing influence in Punjab and other parts of the country and revive his Pakistani Muslim League.
- A key player is the current army chief, Asim Munir, whom Imran had removed as ISI chief.
- If Sharif comes to power with the help of smaller parties, the army will control him. If he comes to power on his own steam, much will still depend on his equations with the army.
Why was Imran ousted?
Imran lost a no-confidence motion in the National Assembly in April 2022; he accused the Pakistan Army of ousting his government on the Biden administration’s instructions. Later, a US website published a secret government cable that spoke of the growing US dissatisfaction with Imran affecting ties. Imran’s relations with the army had already begun to sour as he was meddling in areas of key army postings, a domain that the military establishment strictly kept in its control.
Pakistan army’s chief, General Syed Asim Munir, whom Imran Khan had removed as chief of the ISI. | Photo Credit: W.K. Yousufzai/AP
After his ouster, Imran launched a massive campaign against the army, even accusing it of trying to assassinate him. On May 9, after he was arrested on corruption charges, his PTI supporters resorted to a violent countrywide protest, burning and attacking vehicles and buildings. In an unprecedented development, they targeted army installations and statues of martyred soldiers and entered the residential campus of a senior army general. This led the generals to come down heavily on Imran and his party.
In the following days, the security forces under army chief Asim Munir’s instructions began to systematically dismantle the PTI and make Imran irrelevant. Scores of senior leaders were jailed and released only after they agreed to either retire from politics or publicly criticise Imran for planning the unprecedented attack on the army.
The move to bring Nawaz back, which began after the Shehbaz Sharif-led coalition government replaced Imran’s regime, took formal shape in October. Shehbaz was installed by the army as he had agreed to negotiate a $3 billion bailout package with the IMF. Imran had avoided the move because the IMF’s conditions were linked to strict measures that would adversely impact people’s lives.
AT A GLANCE
Afghans in Pakistan
Pakistan Taliban
Out of FATF grey list
The China factor
Shehbaz stepped in since he was keen to get his elder brother back to Pakistan. Now that Nawaz is back, what can be expected?
“The army may want him to rejuvenate the PML(N) but not necessarily run the country,” said Ayesha Siddiqa, Pakistani commentator and a military and security expert. Siddiqa pointed out that Nawaz and the army have a complex relationship. “They brought him back to push out Imran, but they don’t and won’t trust him to run the country as he wants.”
Nawaz, a business tycoon turned politician, became Prime Minister for the first time in the early 1990s as yet another protégé of the army. Although he has been in the coveted post three times, his run-ins with the army meant that the generals threw him out on one pretext or the other.
Afghan refugees about to cross over into Afghanistan in Chaman in Balochistan near the border, on November 8. Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar’s interim government is using its time in office to throw out undocumented Afghans. | Photo Credit: BANARAS KHAN/AFP
Nawaz’s charisma will be put to severe test in the main political battleground of Punjab. Of Pakistan’s four provinces, Punjab is the richest, most populous, and politically the most important. Fifty per cent of the National Assembly seats are from Punjab. In the recent past, Imran has been able to consolidate his position in Punjab and spread his influence in other provinces, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK).
Imran’s party formed the provincial government in both Punjab and KPK. He also improved his party’s presence significantly in Balochistan and Sindh, traditionally a stronghold of the Bhuttos’ Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
According to Sabharwal, there are three possibilities before Nawaz now. One, he may be able to campaign to revive the PML(N) as its top leader but not be allowed to contest the election as a case that bars him from standing for public office still stands. Two, the cases can be dropped and he may be allowed to contest, but the army will make sure that he does not get majority on his own. To form the next government, therefore, he will have to depend on a number of smaller parties that the army will exercise control over and maintain its hold on the government.
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The third possibility may see Nawaz sweeping the elections and therefore not dependent on the smaller parties. In that scenario, much will depend on how his equations with the army work out. “Knowing Nawaz, he will soon start asserting himself and create another confrontation with the military establishment,” said Sabharwal. Observers believe that as negotiations go on between the PML(N) and the army, many possibilities may open up. Siddiqa said Nawaz could be offered a grandiose title and allowed to create space for his children’s political future even if he does not become Prime Minister for the fourth time.
A lot will depend on Asim Munir, the army chief. Imran had thrown out Munir as chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence with the idea of installing his favourite general in the post. However, as things stand, Munir is the army chief and Imran is in jail. Although Munir was brought to the post by Shehbaz, there is no guarantee that in the coming days the army chief will willingly dilute his authority and be accommodative of his benefactors. While he might pick Shehbaz as the more pliable Prime Minister, he will want him to revive the PML(N) to a position where it dominates Punjab and pushes back the gains made by the PTI.
Of course, Pakistan also has a long history of jailed Prime Ministers coming back to dominate politics. The list includes H.S. Suhrawardy, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and Nawaz. Imran could join them. The main question, however, is whether these permutations and combinations will strengthen the country’s economic and social conditions and turn Pakistan into a more viable democracy.
Pranay Sharma is a commentator on political and foreign affairs-related developments. He has worked in senior editorial positions in leading media organisations.
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