Pakistan is gearing up for elections. Will the army let them happen?

With less than a month to go until a general election, Pakistan’s political landscape is awash with rumor and uncertainty. 

Would-be candidates from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) – the most popular political party, according to a Gallup survey – are struggling to get on the ballot. They are allegedly being suppressed on the orders of Pakistan’s powerful military establishment, though the Election Commission of Pakistan has dismissed claims of an uneven playing field. Meanwhile, PTI’s main rival, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN), only finalized most of its candidates Wednesday night, in what many view as a sign of complacency.

Such is the level of confusion that politicians of all stripes are openly questioning whether the election – currently slated for Feb. 8 – will actually take place. 

Socialist politician Ammar Ali Jan, who belongs to neither the PMLN nor the PTI, says most parties are unsure whether elections can happen while the military establishment remains locked in a tussle with the PTI. “A lot of people are of the opinion that … unless [the military establishment] can create conditions” for a result which it finds acceptable, it “won’t let elections take place,” he says.

Central to this power struggle is the personal animosity between former Prime Minister Imran Khan and the chief of the Pakistan Army, Gen. Syed Asim Munir. Mr. Khan, the PTI leader who headed a coalition government from August 2018 until he was ousted in a vote of no confidence in April 2022, had removed General Munir from his post as the country’s top spymaster under acrimonious circumstances while serving as prime minister.

“Because it is such a personalized struggle between General Munir and Imran Khan, I think the calculation here is that there can only be one man standing, and Munir is not about to allow that one man to be Imran Khan,” says Farzana Shaikh, associate fellow at Chatham House. Dr. Shaikh predicts that elections will likely be delayed until General Munir has assured himself that the PTI will not be able to come in as a credible force.

The broader crackdown

After May 9, 2023, when thousands of PTI supporters laid siege to army installations in objection to Mr. Khan’s arrest, the army cracked down on the party and its top leadership. Thousands of PTI activists were thrown in prison, and more than a hundred politicians were forced to defect from the party.

Mr. Khan, who remains incarcerated pending trial for leaking state secrets, had his nomination papers for the general election rejected and will not, as things stand, appear on ballots in February.

For other party stalwarts, the nomination process has been strewn with obstructions.

Sayed Zulfiqar Bukhari, a longstanding Khan ally, claims that his proposer and seconder – two voters responsible for nominating the candidate – were abducted on their way to file his nomination papers. Later, he says authorities in his constituency argued that the signature on his nomination form had been forged.

Though the courts subsequently cleared him to run, Mr. Bukhari says he’s still facing challenges and harassment. He learned on Tuesday that an accountability court had ordered the freezing of his bank accounts in connection with an ongoing corruption case that involves Mr. Khan and other PTI officials. 

“I think there’s been a decision that we are not favorable [enough] to the establishment at the moment to come into power,” he says.

The Election Commission has rejected these claims, noting that 76% of the PTI candidates who submitted nomination papers for national and provincial assembly seats have been cleared to run.

Pakistan’s caretaker minister of information, Murtaza Solangi, argues that the PTI’s demand of a “level playing field” is just another political play. “‘Level playing field’ … is the new buzzword in Pakistan by political parties to gain sympathies of the voters as they head to elections,” he says. 

Addressing voters’ needs

Yet in recent weeks, PTI lawyers have also had to fight to retain the cricket bat as the party’s election symbol – a critical identifier in a country where an estimated 60 million people are illiterate.

“Pakistan’s electoral process revolves around the symbol,” says PTI lawyer Intazar Panjutha. “The level of illiteracy is such that a lot of people can’t read the names on the ballot paper, so they recognize parties through the symbol.”

On Wednesday, the Peshawar High Court rejected the Election Commission’s decision to strip the PTI of its election symbol after a two-week legal struggle that is set to continue in the Supreme Court. PTI supporters remain optimistic, however, that the groundswell of public opinion will carry them to victory.

“There is an overwhelming consensus that if Pakistan is to prosper, it is the people of Pakistan that have to decide who will govern them,” says former Federal Minister Hammad Azhar, who went into hiding after May 9.

But the pre-election chaos has robbed voters of the chance to hear candidates debate. Few have explained how they plan to address the compounding crises facing the next administration, including an uptick in terror attacks, high levels of inflation, and a power supply shortage that has meant daily blackouts across the country.

“It has been a listless and issueless election campaign so far,” says political scientist and diplomat Maleeha Lodhi. “Some of this is because of the uncertainty about the integrity of elections, but it is also due to the lack of focus by political contestants on policy issues consequential to Pakistan’s future.”