Post-election Pakistan

People supporting Imran Khan were politically curtailed in the pre-election days

The elections are over and as I write the results are being compiled. Pre-election Pakistan had seen no level playing field and although we all are not chained and are free to make our choices yet the supporters of Imran Khan and his party were not allowed to freely participate in the election campaign. The entire world witnessed how political space was denied to a very large section of Pakistanis to fill the streets or hold election rallies to demonstrate their popularity. With the PTI chief in jail and the party deprived of contesting as one political party under its electoral symbol ‘cricket bat’, the mood amongst party supporters in the pre-election days was of political pessimism, dejection and gloom. Yet one thing — hope — was keeping their spirits alive. Hope that on the election day they will get a chance to vote for their favourite candidate and party and make sure they would undo all what had happened to them in the pre-election period by voting in big numbers on the day that mattered. But were they satisfied with what they saw and experienced?

The Yahya Khan and Zia-ul-Haq generations, the baby boomers now living the late years of their lives, must have been sad to see how we continue to slide backwards as a society; and I say that because on the election day, society was overtaken in the most far-reaching effects that the Election Commission of Pakistan could create in this modern world and in this information age. The polling day started with the news that there was no mobile service. Ideally, this depravity of communication should affect all the political parties but those that understand the meaning and the implication of this act know that any abnormal and uncalled for activity on the polling day must have in its cross hairs a higher sense of purpose. Serving national security, many people will agree, was not the sole purpose; the real purpose was utilising another strategy to dampen the spirits of an already mutilated, disjointed and dismembered political party in exercising any form of coordination, influence, monopoly and control over the people and organising them to vote as an organised political party on the polling day. There was nothing democratic in what the Election Commission did and the excuse that this was done for security reasons cannot undo the big damage this has caused to the conduct of free and fair elections even on the polling day.

PTI is not the only political party in the country and Imran Khan is not the only political leader, but there is no doubt that people supporting Khan were politically curtailed in the pre-election days. So, these people were carrying a heavy baggage of hope on the election day and most likely were also most spirited to turn the tables. All voters, regardless of the political party they belong to, after they have fulfilled their national responsibility of casting the vote can only sit and wait for the results. In case of PTI voters they would also pray that the ‘seizure of political process’ that took place in the pre-election period will not continue during and on the election day.

Pakistan is amongst those unfortunate countries where it is already believed and decided who is good for the country. And when such an assessment is already made that goodness can only reflect into practice when those that are presumably considered good can not only win elections but secure power and remain unchallengeable even when they are not popular. No wonder, the term ‘selection’ is more popular in Pakistan than the term ‘election’. Why is the ‘seizure of political process’ the destiny of countries like Pakistan? The most popular academic question being asked all over the universities in Pakistan and in the greater academic world in Pakistan is — when will all this change? These are young minds that ask this question. The same young minds who went out in huge numbers to vote for the political candidates and parties of their choice. My answer to all these students is plain and simple — the very politicians and political parties that we vote for allow the very ‘organs of suppression’ that were designed to serve them become their masters. No matter how unpopular a politician or a political party may be, this arrangement is acceptable to them because of their quest for absolute power. Unfortunately, power so acquired produces both internally and externally its own reaction. And this brings me to the most important question of the day — what would post-election Pakistan be like?

Nobody would read anything that opinion writers write if they don’t make prophecies and predictions or give estimates — in this case political estimates. I believe post-election Pakistan will find itself confronted with and heavily involved in the Herculean effort to confront three important aspects of the national life in this country.

One, whoever forms the government would find it extremely difficult to sell it to both internal and external world that his coming to power is through a legitimate process.

Two, there is no way PTI as a political party can be destroyed physically and according to fair and popular estimates it enjoys both, popular street support and support of the young generation and therefore it will not be possible to decide who won between the two frayed ends of politics in Pakistan — the supporters of status quo and those that challenge it. And unless that happens, we should forget about any national development.

Three, the party that forms the government cannot live in a disbelief that a large section of the Pakistani society in the pre-election period was reduced to a quivering mass of fear, fright and panic without its knowledge.

The post-election Pakistan, the Pakistan of tomorrow no more wants such a frightful and panicked Pakistan. Yet, the government to be formed will be the heir to the system that had made these excesses possible and in the eyes of the people and especially the young generation, they will see the current government as composed of the people that saw no reason to speak about it or change it. To many people in Pakistan such a government would have no reason to claim legitimacy of its power and no reason to seek people’s assurance for its continuity. A weak government with only one end in sight — premature dissolution and yet another election.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 11^th, 2024.

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