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With Imran Khan in prison and his party barred from contesting, Pakistan’s powerful military thought it had orchestrated last week’s election in its favour. It was wrong. On Friday, Khan — the populist former prime minister and national cricket captain — used an AI-generated video to deliver a victory speech from his cell. Independent candidates loyal to his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party won just over a third of the 265 seats, in the deeply flawed vote. Although rival parties have now agreed to form a coalition, PTI’s success against the odds sends an emphatic message from Pakistani citizens: they are tired of being led by self-serving political elites and the military’s arbitration.
The shock result comes as Pakistan is mired in an economic crisis. Last month, annual inflation hit 28 per cent. The country’s debt burden has risen rapidly, and it narrowly avoided a default last year thanks to a $3bn bailout from the IMF. The country of 240mn needs major structural reforms to reap its economic potential, with close to 40 per cent of its population living in poverty. But inept, corrupt and unstable leadership has hindered that. The meddling military has in part meant no Pakistani prime minister has yet served a full five-year term. Frequent terrorist attacks have made it even more difficult to govern.
Pakistanis voted against this ongoing economic and political malaise. The number of seats won by Khan’s loyalists, despite the impediments they faced, is a measure of the people’s disgruntlement. Khan’s imprisonment since last August — on charges ranging from leaking state secrets to marrying illegally — was part of a nationwide crackdown by the military, judiciary and other political parties on the PTI, in which its staff and supporters were roundly detained and harassed.
The election itself was marred by irregularities including a significant delay in publishing a final tally and mobile service blackouts. PTI says it would have otherwise won a majority. The US and EU are right to call for an investigation into claims of interference.
Khan is no purist. His rise to the premiership in 2018 was helped by the army. He also demonstrated a demagogic bent while in office, using corruption allegations to jail and harass political rivals. His flip-flopping on economic policy — for instance, backtracking on cutting energy subsidies — has also exacerbated the country’s pain.
Yet, with alternatives including the Pakistan Muslim League-N party, led by three-time former leader Nawaz Sharif, and the Pakistan People’s party, whose president is Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of slain premier Benazir Bhutto, Khan’s loyalists remained the vote for change. Indeed, the PML-N and PPP have proved more pliable to the military.
The PML-N and PPP are now set to form a government with Sharif nominating his brother, and former premier, Shehbaz Sharif to be prime minister. The PTI has shown no interest in creating a coalition itself, and instead vowed to contest the results, prove its majority and overturn the charges facing Khan.
The election’s outcome ultimately makes the country even less governable. The coalition will struggle for legitimacy. That is particularly problematic as Pakistan is likely to need new IMF loans when its current support expires in April, which would warrant painful and unpopular reforms if it is to avoid flirting with default yet again. Protests over the botched election will not go away either.
There are no easy fixes for Pakistan’s long-standing economic and security troubles, regardless of who is in power. But empowering voters to hold leaders accountable through truly free and fair elections — without the military’s stranglehold — would be a start. With this stunning election result, a long-term reckoning over how Pakistan ought to be governed has begun.
