Rare moment to establish civilian supremacy

We are within striking distance of a new social contract for Pakistan. Over the last six months, Imran Khan has electrified and educated the masses on the power of their vote to dilute the strength of unelected forces, which exert undue influence within the corridors of power. He builds on similar messaging delivered by Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz for three years before that. The difference is that Khan has been able to mobilise a larger number of people, including Gen Z on his message. The big question now is whether he can finish what he started or whether he’ll cut a deal like Shehbaz Sharif and dial down his narrative.

It’s clear that there is a desire to teach PTI a lesson, which is why Khan’s chief of staff languished in prison for weeks. PTI’s formula for navigating out of this ditch is a singular drive to call for early, if not timely, elections. Khan is betting the house on elections giving him a thumping majority. PTI believes that a strong mandate will limit the ability of the boys to indulge in pre or post poll tricks. That’s a very big assumption but if the Punjab by-elections are a signal, the PDM is about to be routed and electoral results have to be accepted, if PTI wins by such a large margin. In fact, PTI would go as far as to argue that the reason other by-elections have been postponed even in non-flood affected areas is because of the fear PTI’s wave of popularity is creating.

A quick side note for those whose software hasn’t been updated and who still can’t come to terms with the fact that Khan is now the brightest hope to establish civilian supremacy in Pakistan, consider the pattern of actions that started while he was in power. Rejecting notifications, taking interviews, dictating timelines, Khan asserted civilian supremacy for the second holiest appointment in the land of the pure last November and he’s scandalising another November appointment this year. And before Khan said absolutely not to America, he said absolutely not to Saudi Arabia. First on sending Pakistani troops to Yemen, then on turning down the heat on OIC for Kashmir and then again on recognising Israel. This didn’t make the boys happy but Khan stood his ground wherever he wanted to, including on Usman Buzdar. His assertion of civilian supremacy has only been amplified since he’s been booted out as PM.

But is this all a negotiation ploy to become PM again or can he actually pull off something more substantive? Nawaz and Maryam were able to create similar pressure, and Shehbaz negotiated that wave all the way into a Prime Ministerial Sherwani. Khan argues that he’s different but what are the signs we should look out for to tell if he’s actually different?

PDM’s strategy to topple the PTI government was focused on a backchannel deal with the boys to overthrow PTI through breaking away their coalition partners. This was combined with a good cop, bad cop negotiation strategy with the boys where Nawaz and Maryam played hardball and Shehbaz positioned himself as a candidate for PM so no one would have any hard feelings. PTI’s strategy is dramatically different. They’re calling for actual elections to overcome a political impasse versus a backdoor deal. And there’s only one candidate for PM: Imran Khan. Given Khan’s public clarity on the power of the people’s vote to contain unelected forces, there’s only one pathway for Khan to come back to power: to translate a wave of popularity into a landslide electoral win. And once he wins, he wants to make the people’s mandate his source of strength and stubbornness on civilian supremacy. This is a once in a generation opportunity to re-write Pakistan’s social contract.

The only other pathway is for both PTI and PDM to come together to assert civilian supremacy. The PTI is ready to talk to anyone on the single point agenda of holding elections. But the PDM knows that it’s likely to be routed in any election right now so that doesn’t appear to be a viable pathway to assert civilian supremacy at the moment.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 18^th, 2022.

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