Editorial: Anatomy of a poll

CHENNAI: The outcome of the February 8 general elections in Pakistan was besmirched by allegations of widespread rigging to alter results and public admission of vote manipulation by an election official. Ten days after voting, there is no clarity on which party would form the government at the Centre.

Although independent candidates backed by jailed former PM Imran Khan’s PTI won the maximum number of seats in Parliament, the PML-N and the PPP had announced that they will form a coalition government after the elections resulted in a hung Parliament.

The country’s electoral history is riddled with leaks — a situation that has persisted for decades — none of the democratically-elected governments were ever allowed to complete their tenure. In turn, whoever makes it to the hot seat of the hybrid governance model is a marionette, whose strings are pulled by Islamabad’s military establishment.

Recall that in 2017, Sharif, who leads the country’s most powerful political family and the PML-N, was disqualified by the Supreme Court from holding public office and was also sentenced to 10 years in prison by an accountability court. He couldn’t contest the elections due to his conviction and sentencing. A year later in 2018, the preferred choice of the generals, PTI chief Imran Khan was elected to power.

This year in a reversal of fortunes, Khan was handed out back to back jail sentences, totalling ten years a week before the Parliamentary elections. The former cricketer was barred from contesting elections and disqualified from holding any public office for a decade. Khan was wiggled out of power in April 2022 after he fell out with the military.

Subsequently, he went on to deride the army alleging that in cahoots with the United States, it was conniving to oust him. The law enforcement machinery unleashed a systematic purge of the PTI — many of its leaders were imprisoned, while several others resigned owing to coercion, while a few are on the run.

The political stalemate spells bad news for Islamabad. This week, international ratings agency Fitch warned that the close outcome of the polls and the near-term political uncertainty could complicate Pak efforts to secure a financing agreement with the IMF.

The agency said that a new IMF deal to succeed the Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) expiring in March this year, was key to Pakistan’s credit profile. It was just last month that Pakistan received in excess of $700 million in the second tranche from the Washington-based global lender under the existing $3 billion SBA agreed towards June last year when Pakistan was slowly drifting towards default.

The poll outcome, which seems to be match-fixed, might have little bearing on the fate of Pakistan. It is already reeling from the fallout of a devastated economy — year on year inflation in January peaked at 28% and daily essentials have become a luxury for most commoners. There’s rising militancy with the Tehreek-i-Taliban ramping up its attacks.

A strained relationship with its neighbour Tehran is only compounding Islamabad’s woes as it finds itself caught between its loyalties to China, and coveting the US’s attention to repair its damaged fiscal framework. The running joke in Pakistani political circles is that though the Pakistani army has not won any wars, it hasn’t lost any elections either. Sadly, no matter who comes into power, it’s a lose-lose game, as far as the citizens are concerned.