A false facade of elections in Pakistan

Pakistan General Elections are likely to be held in November — three months after the dissolution of the National Assembly — after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif maintained that he would hand over the reins to the caretaker set-up next month before the completion of the assembly’s tenure. His government is anyway set to complete its tenure in August, but he now plans to leave the election process to fate (as usually happens in the country). “Next month our government will complete its tenure, [but] we will leave before the completion of our tenure and an interim government will come in,” he said while speaking at a function on Sunday.

Scepticism is all pervading among Pakistan watchers as the Election Commission of Pakistan and the federal government have refused to hold polls within a time frame on one pretext or the other to the provincial assemblies of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regions. Only recently, Pakistan’s economy began breathing a bit easily with a fresh IMF loan and a Saudi commitment, as usual. Still Shabaz preferred to state that he would step down early and requested the people to allow Nawaz Sharif to return to Pakistan’s electoral politics.

The reason for the scepticism is Imran Khan. Though he is down and out with many of his party colleagues too quitting his party on various grounds, he is still kicking around. It would not be possible for elections to be held, and peacefully at that, unless Imran is removed from the scene completely. This is essential to the Army and its agencies as Imran challenged not only its credibility but also its authority and hence was forced to quit.

The Pakistani public today is in no position to believe in their system that the constitutional requirements of election dates would be adhered to. But, that has been the history of Pakistan. Since 1970’s first direct national election, none of the victorious political parties was permitted to assume office. Such a party was also not allowed to return to power in the subsequent elections if it was removed at the instance of the Army. For that matter, no party was allowed to be in power if it had fallen out of Army’s favour. Sheikh Mujibur Rehman won the 1970 elections, but could not come to power because of General Yahya Khan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto also played a role in it, it is said. We also have an example of a leader in Mohammad Khan Junejo who was appointed by General Ziaul Haq after 1985 elections. He was an example of how one would be deposed if one becomes a threat to his Godfather. Benazir Bhutto too lost power within two years of her election. Nawaz Sharif was deposed in 1993 and Benazir was permitted to come back but was kicked out of power again in 1996. Nawaz Sharif won two-third majority in 1997 but had to vanish from the scene into exile after the 1999 coup.

Chaudhry Shujaat Husain later came to power when General Pervez Musharraf supported him but when the latter favoured his rival he lost in 2008. The Imran Khan case is still fresh in everyone’s mind and it is only a matter of time before he is imprisoned. Well, Pakistani leaders have four options - power, prison, exile and noose - to choose from. What they don’t have is the freedom to honour the people’s verdict.