Unexpected outcome of 2024 elections

Who was the actual winner of the 2024 Pakistani elections? The answer to this question will be debated for generations in our history books. What shouldn’t be de[1]bated though, is: who was the biggest loser? That title doesn’t belong to the PML-N or the powers-that-be, as was argued by journalists who wrote the first draft of history in real time.

The biggest loser of the 2024 elections is the politics of the electables. Elections are typically an opportunity for the ruled to choose their rulers. In Pakistan, where black is white and white is black, the Feb 8 elections did 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, electrified and inspired. What’s going on here?

On Feb 8, 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 and read out a namaz-e-janaza for the politics of the electable.

Traditionally, electables in Pakistan are used to winning elections regardless of which party’s symbol they’re running on and which way the political winds are blowing. Moreover, once they win elections, electables are a conve[1]nient lever for the real power brokers in the country to gently direct the people’s mandate in whatever direction they feel is best for the country.

The 2024 elections turned these traditional expectations on their head. Jahangir Tareen, the chief organiser of the electables, lost his own election by a landslide and his party full of electables lost spectacularly in constituency after constituency. Even Saad Rafiq and Rana Sanaullah lost their seats and most independent observers argue that Khwaja Asif too. Pervaiz Khattak also lost his personal seat to a no-name PTI candidate.

Many of these electables lost to tier 2 and 3 PTI candidates with virtu[1]ally no name recognition. There’s only one man who can take the credit or blame for this: Imran Khan. 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 IK 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, IK 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 IK himself, media censorship, killing a party worker and shelling them with tear gas and rubber bullets. This is classic behaviour to get any civilian leader in Pakistan to fall in line.

But IK 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. And this is what backfired for the electables. For the first time, the Pakistani people voted for something beyond their bread and butter issues — the thana katcheri patronage system that electables master.

This time people voted for their basic rights, including the right to vote. And the electables chose to stand on the wrong side of history. The people of Pakistan have demonstrated how knowledgeable, intelligent and nuanced their voting choices are.

This is driven in large part by millions of young voters tearing apart the traditional social contract their parents have with their local electable. This is why the 2024 elections mark the beginning of the end for the politics of electables in Pakistan.