Voters rewrite Pakistan’s social contract

Elections are typically an opportunity for the ruled to choose their rulers. In Pakistan, where black is white and white is black, the February 8^th elections will not produce a change in rulers. And yet, the PTI voters who quietly turned out a tsunami for change haven’t lost their faith in democracy. Instead, they are energised and electrified. What’s going on here?

In this piece, I will argue that PTI’s voters may not have been able to force a change in their rulers immediately but they have rewritten the social contract between the rulers and the ruled in Pakistan forever. In the process, they have finally bent the arc of Pakistan’s history definitively towards civilian supremacy.

In my last column before the elections, I argued that “he who must not be named could become the best thing to happen to civilian supremacy in Pakistan’s history — if he wins on February 8^th.” Over the last 18 months, he 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 other political giants before him. The difference is that Imran Khan has been able to mobilise a larger number of people, including Gen Z, urban elite and traditionally pro-establishment constituencies on his message. More importantly, Khan and his supporters have shown extraordinary courage in the face of brutal state repression.

It started with the murder of Arshad Sharif, the jailing and torturing of senior PTI party leadership, leaking of private videos, an assassination attempt on Khan himself, media censorship, killing a party worker and shelling them with teargas and rubber bullets. This is classic behaviour to get any civilian leader in Pakistan to fall in line. But Khan refused to fall in line or be exiled. He kept making a singular demand to hold elections. And now we know why.

On a side note, remember when they said he wouldn’t last more than three days in jail because of withdrawal from drugs or when they disqualified his marriage? That’s what they threw at him. Everything and the kitchen sink.

“Even if Imran Khan fails or you believe he’s a flawed vessel,” I wrote in the last paragraph of my column before the elections. “You should consider voting for him this Thursday. We need to present a united front. Given Imran Khan’s public clarity on the power of the people’s vote to contain unelected forces, there’s only one pathway forward: to translate his wave of popularity into a landslide electoral win. And once he wins, to make the people’s mandate a source of strength and stubbornness on civilian supremacy. This is a once in a generation opportunity to re-write Pakistan’s social contract and it’s precisely why the state is hell bent on quashing it so violently.”

And now we find ourselves in precisely this scenario. The mandate of the people stands for change and yet the powers that be don’t want to change; they want to cut a deal. Wise intellectuals are asking PTI to cut a deal in the name of talking to all other parties. But Khan is being stubborn and asking for the people’s genuine mandate to be respected. We are now witnessing the historic renegotiation of Pakistan’s social contract. On the one hand, the powers that be want Khan to fold like all other political leaders before him. On the other hand, the people of Pakistan want their mandate to register. The one who blinks first will lose.

In the longer arc of history, some irreversible gains have already been made by the Pakistani people on Feb 8^th. First, the Pakistani people are entirely capable of producing peaceful revolutions through the ballot box. An extraordinary feat when you consider how many other Muslim nations break out into civil war and violence when renegotiating social contracts between the ruled and the rulers. Second, the new ‘electable’ candidate is the one who stands with the people of Pakistan. No backdoor deals or guarantees can withstand the sheer force of the Pakistani voter. And finally, that the Pakistani voter isn’t dumb or unaware — even if you snatch their bat and shut off their phone. This was a vote for the right to vote. Democracy has won by a landslide.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 18^th, 2024.

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