By John J. Metzler
Pakistan is politically on the brink again in the aftermath of fractious but inconclusive national parliamentary elections, which ended with a wavering question mark hanging over this land of 241 million people like a political Damocles' sword. Two former prime ministers, both of whom are bitter rivals and equally mired in alleged corruption, are vying for the top spot.
Personality politics and regionalism remain a powerful force in this Muslim land created through the partition of India in 1947. A gaggle of political parties, colorful personalities and scions of family dynasties all compete in a contentious political landscape. Yet it's the Pakistan Army that remains the ultimate kingmaker.
A Pakistani blogger jested, "The Pakistani Army has never won a war but never lost an election." The quip reflected Pakistan's three lost conflicts with neighboring India over the disputed Kashmir region.
Imran Khan remains a wildly popular populist whose PTI party or Pakistan Movement for Justice would have likely won the parliamentary elections. He actually did, given that his barred candidates running as "independents" scored 93 plus seats, beating the government candidate.
Pakistan's military backed the Sharif government in what appeared to be a slam dunk to win the elections. After all, the country's most popular figure, Khan, was jailed by the government on a plethora of trumped-up politicized charges and thus barred from running. Khan, a former world-ranked cricketer and London playboy, turned to politics and founded the PTI.
Following the inconclusive election results, Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Asim Munir, called on all parties to "show maturity and unity," saying, "Elections are not a zero-sum competition of winning and losing but an exercise to determine the mandate of the people."
The election delivers a major political upset driven by an anti-establishment vote, a younger societal disenchantment, and genuine concerns about vote rigging and government shutdown of phone and internet services on election day. The United States, Britain and the European Union expressed concerns about the election's fairness.
But now there's more wrangling and horse-trading as the politicians try to form a government in Islamabad, the capital. Yet the shadows of the men in uniform, who historically ruled this land for nearly half its national existence, are very much in evidence even on the brightest day.
Forming a coalition needs a simple majority of 169 seats in the Pakistani National Assembly.
Nawaz Sharif, 73, a three-time former prime minister ousted for corruption in 2018, has returned from a four-year exile in London and leads the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. His party won 75 seats.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party got 54 seats and will likely join Sharif in forming a coalition government. Bilawal Bhutto is the son of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Khan, 71, the winner of the last national 2018 elections, was forced out of office by a no-confidence vote in 2022. But despite his popularity, he sits in jail and, nonetheless, remains the most charismatic politician in Pakistan, as the unrelenting political allegations and a plethora of charges thrown at him have energized his popularity and political support. The charges and court cases against him involve "leaking classified state documents," gifts his wife received while he was in office and "corruption," for which he is currently serving a jail term.
Khan, a populist politician, is prone to sometimes outrageous antics to get attention. This writer saw him at a U.N. press conference a few years ago where, as prime minister, he railed against India and predicted a major uprising in the contested Kashmir region.
Do these events half a world away echo a strange resonance as the U.S. approaches elections in November?
Beyond chronic political infighting, Pakistan stands on the precipice of economic disaster, entrenched youth unemployment and violence spillover from neighboring Afghanistan.
Nonetheless, Pakistan's political polestars maintain its close ties to China and perpetual hostility towards India.
The army has been described by pundits as "a state within a state," and it has influenced national politics since Pakistan gained independence from Britain in 1947. Indeed, within the military, there's the InterServices Intelligence network, which runs a shadow government — the ultimate deep state — that has played a decidedly double game backing various Taliban factions during and after the War in Afghanistan.
Equally, Pakistan, not to be forgotten, is a nuclear-armed state like India. The long-running confrontation with India concerning Kashmir remains a short fuse that threatens to lead to a wider conflict.
What does this mean for South and Southeast Asia? So much to anyone paying attention.
John J. Metzler (jjmcolumn@earthlink.net) is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of "Divided Dynamism: The Diplomacy of Separated Nations; Germany, Korea, China."
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