Amid post-election chaos, new government takes shape in Pakistan

It was hoped that the 2024 general election would produce the kind of stable government necessary for Pakistan to begin dealing with its myriad problems. Yet almost two weeks after voters went to the polls, the country of 240 million finds itself on the brink of being governed by a coalition of the also-rans.

Defying all odds, candidates affiliated with imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, emerged from the Feb. 8 polls as the largest voting bloc in Parliament. This resulted in several rounds of complex negotiations between the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz and the Pakistan People’s Party to create a coalition government that could counter PTI’s influence. On Tuesday night, the impasse was finally breached when the two parties agreed to a power-sharing formula that would see the PMLN’s Shehbaz Sharif becoming the prime minister and the PPP’s Asif Ali Zardari becoming the president.

“This government is illicit, it is illegal, and it will collapse on its own feet,” says Shandana Gulzar, a PTI-affiliated candidate who won her seat in Peshawar. “I got a whopping majority in the election simply because people are sick and tired of dealing with sycophants, with corrupt dynasties, and they wanted change.” 

The deal between the PMLN and the PPP, who came second and third in the general election, has restored a degree of confidence in the markets, with the Pakistan Stock Exchange rallying by over a thousand points. Yet throughout the country, protests continue to rage over alleged election-rigging, and a perilous economic situation has left almost 40% of the population below the poverty line. Without a clear mandate to govern, the incoming coalition may find it difficult to secure a much-needed bailout from the International Monetary Fund and get Pakistan’s economy back on track. 

“Pakistan has soaring crises across the board, which means there’s much at stake for a new government,” says Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute. The coalition “will be expected to hit the ground running.”

Mounting evidence of rigging 

On Feb. 20, the Election Commission of Pakistan, which has been excoriated for the way it conducted the vote, heard petitions filed by candidates from around 40 constituencies, many alleging that their results had been manipulated. 

Their experiences resemble that of Shoaib Shaheen, a PTI-backed candidate who had taken a commanding lead in his Islamabad constituency before election results suddenly stopped on the evening of Feb. 8. The next morning, when the results resumed, Mr. Shaheen and many others saw their leads evaporate. 

Literature professor Shaheena Bhatti, who voted for Mr. Shaheen, describes the results as a robbery.

“If we were in a remote part of the country, I would have said, ‘OK, maybe there’s been a problem with the counting of votes, or some kind of issue in communicating the results,’” says Dr. Bhatti. “But not in the federal capital. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

On Saturday, a senior bureaucrat added fuel to the fire when he admitted to his involvement in large-scale vote-rigging.

“We converted the losers into winners, reversing margins of 70,000 votes in 13 National Assembly seats,” said Liaqat Ali Chattha, who resigned from his position as commissioner of the garrison city of Rawalpindi shortly after the announcement. “I should be punished for the injustice I have done, and others who were involved in this injustice should also be punished.”

Mr. Chattha’s admission, however, was met with skepticism by some observers after he absolved the country’s politically powerful military of playing a role in the manipulation. Instead, Mr. Chattha blamed the Election Commission of Pakistan and the chief justice of Pakistan, Qazi Faez Isa, for tampering with the results. Both the commission and Chief Justice Isa have denied the allegations.

A government on shaky footing

Irrespective of who is to blame, the former commissioner’s allegations have had the effect of discrediting almost entirely an election that was already steeped in controversy before a single ballot had been cast. 

In the days after the election, protests broke out across the country with footage emerging of demonstrators being roughly handled and arrested, and of police using tear gas to disperse these gatherings. And when evidence of poll tampering began to circulate on social media, authorities made the decision to restrict access to X, formerly Twitter. The site remained inaccessible on Wednesday.

“There’s no transparency on the government’s side ... so everything is based on conjecture,” says digital rights activist Usama Khilji.

In this atmosphere of confusion, political analysts doubt that the PMLN and PPP will be able to govern effectively. 

“Given the lack of a majority by any of the parties of the coalition, the new government will be walking on eggshells,” says journalist Taha Siddiqui, who has been living in exile since 2018. “Plus, with such a weak coalition, the powerful military establishment will be able to easily manipulate the Parliament into doing its bidding by using one political group against the other, as it has been known to do in the past.”  

The army has ruled Pakistan directly for 32 out of the country’s 75 years of existence and spent the rest of the time controlling the country from the shadows. Ms. Gulzar, the PTI-candidate from Peshawar, says that the only reason former Prime Minister Khan is in jail is because “the status quo and the forces that be” cannot abide by the idea that “Pakistan could be a country that actually would head towards genuine development.”

Under the constitution, the president is duty-bound to convene the inaugural session of the new National Assembly by Feb. 29, and, provided the coalition agreement holds, that is when the new government will officially be formed.