• Pakistan’s next general election will be held on the 8th of February 2024.
• There is still a heap of uncertainty over Imran Khan’s legal situation and the future of the nation.
On the 8th of February Pakistanis are set to vote in arguably the most significant election since the country’s independence in 1947. The date was set by Pakistan’s election commission earlier this month.
To say that tensions are high in Pakistan is an understatement; there is an energetic buzz in the nation. For Pakistani voters this election may be the key to much needed political change in a country ravaged by the excesses of poverty, illiteracy, terrorism, and most notably, rampant corruption in the judiciary, police, and other areas of public life.
Given all that is at stake, the key to this victory is former Prime Minister Imran Khan. After the 2018 general election Mr Khan took up the top job and subsequently led the nation through the Covid-19 pandemic only to be ousted by a unified opposition in a vote of no-confidence in April of 2022. Since then, the former PM has survived an assassination attempt and been subjected to a host of trumped-up corruption charges.
Later in May of 2023 Mr Khan was apprehended by the Punjab Rangers, a paramilitary federal law enforcement corps who smashed their way through the windows of the courthouse where Mr Khan and his lawyers were signing legal documents. His arrest was followed by protests, riots, and the arrests of thousands of his supporters.
Currently he sits in prison on charges of leaking state secrets. In a recent poll his party, PTI, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice) leads the playing field with an astounding 66% of the vote. Yet, recently on the 30th of December Mr Khan along with several of his former cabinet members had their nominations to contest the upcoming elections emphatically rejected by the national electoral body because of ongoing corruption charges against them.
Regardless, the PTI and its largely youthful base of supporters are hopeful. Earlier this month an AI version of Mr Khan addressed his followers in a virtual rally and show of defiance against the interim government who banned the PTI from holding public demonstrations, going as far as temporarily shutting the internet and preventing news agencies from mentioning Imran Khan’s name.
Although Mr Khan has earned the opprobrium of his opponents for his ostensible economic and fiscal mismanagement of the country, the PTI and its supporters in addition to international think thanks, academics, and pundits have blamed the inner workings of the Pakistani Army in the country’s political system and its undue influence on political figures who been the beneficiaries of various bribes. Consequentially this has resulted in a nation with rolling blackouts, weak institutions, and little to no justice for the pauper.
But why is Pakistan the way it is at present? Much of the answer lies in colonial history. In their highly influential book, Why Nations Fail, economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that in nations with high levels of historic European settler mortality (from diseases like malaria and tuberculosis), colonizers had incentives to extract as many valuable resources as possible and no motivation to develop sound political institutions and a working justice system.
Ultimately this kind of system was inherited by Pakistanis at the dawn of the nation’s independence. Thus, the political and military elites who generated substantial wealth over the decades through dubious means have no ambitions to share their spoils with the wider strata of society. Reformers such as Imran Khan who have built their entire political career on stamping out graft are vigorously challenged by those who seek to maintain the status quo.
Nonetheless, as the saying goes; yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift-that is why we call it the present. Whether the PTI can gift Pakistan a victory and restore Imran Khan to power (if they can) remains to be seen. Undoubtedly more uncertainty and political shenanigans are set to come in the buildup to and aftermath of election day. The country is no stranger to rigged elections. Still, Pakistanis are waiting, and the world is watching.
