Thousands watched as a leather whip fell on the back of Kale Khan, proclaimed “a notorious smuggler” by the regime of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq: The hand of God was always busy in the Islamic utopia the General was building. Floggings and even amputation—“under local anaesthesia”, the regulations conceded, in a concession to modernity—were introduced in a new criminal code to punish criminals, fornicators and political opponents.
Editors who asked how long military rule would last got a grim answer from the General: “Maybe two years, maybe four years, maybe 10 years.”
Less than four weeks from today, on 12 August, the term of Pakistan’s parliament, the National Assembly, will end. Even though ministers have given conflicting accounts of exactly when parliament will be dissolved, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has promised to hand power to an interim government that will conduct elections within three months.
Three critical dangers confront democratic life in Pakistan if the coming elections aren’t credible. First, engineering defections from former prime minister Imran Khan’s party and prosecuting him in high-profile graft cases have weakened him heading into the elections. Even then, he’s demonstrated substantial popular support—especially among the young. Flagrant rigging could destabilise the polity, undermining Pakistan’s fragile economy.
Second, eliminating the axis of opposition from Pakistan’s political life could empower a resurgent jihadist movement operating against the army with increasing immunity. Last week, 12 soldiers were lost in attacks at Zhob and Sui.
Third, the threat to the army’s own legitimacy could push it to deepen repression, further destabilising Pakistan’s polity. The military is determined to keep Imran out—but to keep him out might involve the demolition of the party system in Pakistan.
Late in 1984, Zia held a referendum to legitimise his rule. Empty voting stations manifested overflowing boxes of ballots, 97.7 per cent marked in the General’s favour. Zia’s dour clerical ally, the Pir of Pagaro, Sikander Ali Shah, attributed the miracle to ‘farishtey’, or angels. In many elections since —among them, the referendum held by General Pervez Musharraf, and Imran’s own triumph five years ago—farishtey have proved a decisive voting bloc.
Will they do so again? To hazard an answer needs an examination of the complex ties between the military and Imran’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party, and why they broke down.
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The birth of a new politics
“Are you sure you want to start a political party?” the constitutional lawyer Hamid Khan incredulously asked Imran in the summer of 1996. Early on the morning of 25 April 1996, former party activist Tabinda Khan recorded, Imran had called a meeting at the home of Nausherwan Burki, the head of the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital. There, he had put his plans to a small group of his core philanthropic supporters—not a single one a career politician.
“The PTI’s founding group,” Tabinda Khan notes, “was connected to high-ranking military officials and politicians aligned with the Musharraf regime through family ties and long-standing friendships.” Like the military leadership, the élite it represented attributed Pakistan’s problems to the corruption and incompetence of traditional politicians.
From 9/11 on, Imran grew in visibility—the consequence of the exile imposed on former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif by Musharraf’s military regime. Imran could have capitalised on the opportunity—but his trenchant support for the Taliban and his opposition to the Pakistan military’s cooperation with the West led him to be arrested under anti-terrorism laws by Musharraf in 2007.
In 2008, Musharraf turned to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) for legitimacy. Even if some in the party were uncomfortable about making a deal with a military ruler who had deposed their principal opposition in a coup, they chose to silence their conscience. The seduction of power, as always, was substantial: “Politicians from the existing parties,” scholar C. Christine Fair has observed, “would rather serve the army than lose power altogether.”
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The official dissenter
The disquiet Imran voiced with the war on terror, though, was shared by a significant section of the military élite. From 2007, journalist Daud Khattak has reported, new army chief General Pervez Ashfaq Kayani pushed efforts to secure peace deals with Tehreek-e-Taliban jihadists in Pakistan. Like other key military leaders, Kayani believed that the rupture between jihadists and the army after 9/11 posed an existential threat to Pakistan, confronting it with an un-winnable war.
Following his electoral defeat in 2013, and the return of Nawaz as prime minister, Imran realised his party needed the backing of so-called notables—the powerful political brokers who controlled the electoral system.
The military élite facilitated the process. Imran spearheaded multiple protests against Nawaz, with the tacit backing of the Pakistan Army, culminating in a judiciary-led coup against the prime minister and a sham election that catapulted him to office.
Even if the election was rigged, Imran had genuine appeal. The vague Islamic egalitarianism he propagated drew on former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s ideas, repackaged for a new youth cohort. To many young people, it seemed that Imran—who had, after all, demonstrated national success was possible on the cricket field—could deliver on the promise of Pakistan, where tired old dynastic leaders had failed.
Like Zulfikar and other prime ministers, Imran remained concerned that the army that had installed him in office could just as easily dethrone him. His efforts to populate the top leadership of the army with loyal allies precipitated the crisis that ended with his dismissal last year.
Even though the Generals evicted Imran, they understand the forces he represents cannot be wished away. The Generals know Pakistan’s political parties are important, or they wouldn’t spend so much time attempting to control their leadership and direct their course. Even for powerful despots like Zia, politicians with local fiefdoms have been important conduits to exercise power on the ground.
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Zia’s dark shadow
Zia legitimised his rule with a referendum—since there was no mention of democratic elections in the Quran—asking if citizens supported the Islamic ideology of Pakistan. “Giving a vote for Islamic Democracy is your national obligation,” a banner in Bahawalpur exhorted residents, a message backed up by making opposition to the referendum a criminal offence. The military claimed over 60 per cent of eligible citizens had participated, with 97.7 per cent voting ‘yes.’
Estimates made by independent observers put participation as low as 30 per cent, and opposition leaders at just 5 per cent, scholar William Richter wrote. Later, he held a non-partisan election, which led to the election of landowner and industrialist Mohammad Khan Junejo as Prime Minister. Even the pliant Junejo clashed with his master on key military appointments, and was dismissed in May 1988.
Musharraf used the same methods. According to the official figures, some 97.5 per cent of voters supported his appointment as the country’s president, in addition to serving as army chief. “What people cannot do, can always be achieved through angels,” one journalist told writer Massoud Ansari. Musharraf’s hand-picked political clients, the Pakistan Muslim League-Qaid-e-Azam, proved inadequate to secure his position, though, and he was forced to seek reconciliation with the PPP.
Even though the army could install clients to serve as its instruments, it needed a higher moral authority to justify its control of society and politics. From early in Pakistan’s national history, scholar Ayesha Siddiqa has perceptively argued, the military cloaked itself in the mantle of the religious nationalism on which the country was founded.
Zia’s theocratic tendencies were no accident: The General’s invocation of God’s authority was needed to restore the authority of an institution battered by military defeat in 1971 and challenged by multiple insurrections at home.
Imran has brought the moral authority army over political life into question as never before, exposing the divisions within its ranks on Pakistan’s political future. Though it is probable his fate in the coming elections will be sealed by farishtey, he’s unleashed his own djinns in response. A long, fateful battle looms after the last vote is cast.
The author is National Security Editor, ThePrint. He tweets @praveenswami. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)