Days after Pakistan's general elections on February 8, the Election Commission of Pakistan released official results that confirmed major political unrest. Contrary to what most political pundits and observers expected, independents allied with former Prime Minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party won the largest number of seats at the national level, followed by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's PML-N. The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz's wing), the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). No party obtained the absolute majority necessary to form the government on its own. The resulting uncertainty means that the United States may have to deal with a government that is more focused on dealing with domestic politics and less focused on addressing strategic challenges.
The election results – the PTI won 93 of the 266 seats that could be contested at the national level, the PML-N won 75 seats, the Pakistan Peoples Party won 54 seats, and the MQM won 17 seats – were highly… Of controversy and uncertainty about the political future of Pakistan. On the one hand, the most likely scenario seems to be the formation of a coalition government that may struggle to muster the political strength to advance much-needed economic reforms and confront serious governance and security challenges. On the other hand, several contenders have raised allegations of vote rigging, which would raise questions about the credibility of the future government. Candidates allied with the PTI movement in particular claim that the delay in the final announcement of the results is evidence of irregularities. Even before the elections, it was clear that the electoral playing field was tilted against the PTI. The US State Department noted the allegations of interference in the electoral process and called for a full investigation. In its initial report, the Free and Fair Elections Network of Pakistan, the poll monitoring body, noted that there was transparency at polling stations, but it was compromised at the vote counting and counting stage.
Despite not winning the largest number of seats, the PML-N is now trying to form a coalition government with the PPP and MQM – as these parties together have a close majority of seats, which is required to form a government. It also nominated former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif – Nawaz Sharif's brother – to lead the coalition as the new prime minister. For its part, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party announced its intention to form a government in the center as well as in the provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but it is not clear who it will ally with to obtain the majority required to form the government. It is most likely that candidates allied with the PTI will sit in the opposition in the National Assembly, as the party has made it clear that it will not ally with the PML-N or the Pakistan Peoples Party.
Rule of the people
The victory of the candidates supported by the PTI movement defies the expectations of political pundits in Pakistan. It was widely expected that the PML-N would win and the PTI would lose the elections. At the heart of this expectation was the state of the relationship between Khan and Pakistan's powerful military establishment, which was seen as supporting the PML-N's return to power and preventing Khan and the PTI.
Khan fell out with the military when his government was ousted in a no-confidence vote in 2022, which he accused of being a regime change operation orchestrated by the military with the United States. His party has been in the line of fire since May 9, 2023, when his supporters attacked military installations across the country. Khan himself has been in prison since last year due to several cases accusing him of graft and improper handling of confidential information, which meant that he was unable to campaign for his party in the elections. Perhaps most significantly, in the run-up to the elections, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was deprived of its electoral symbol (the cricket bat) by the Pakistani Supreme Court, which was widely seen as part of a broader campaign to tilt the electoral playing field against the party. .
Despite all these measures, the fact that the PTI-backed candidates won such a large share is a remarkable result, making the 2024 elections one of the most important in Pakistan’s contemporary history. One way to read the vote is that the Pakistani people rejected the two traditional parties – the PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party – and embraced Khan's ambitious populist political programme. Another way to read the result is that it also represents a rejection of the military establishment's role in politics, especially its opposition to the PTI and the crackdown on the party since last year.
The results also indicate Pakistanis' dissatisfaction with the country's general course and with the electoral process being a solution to the challenges facing the country. According to Gallup, Pakistanis are very pessimistic about the country's economic future and also question the integrity of the electoral process – before the election, seven in 10 Pakistanis said they lacked confidence in the integrity of the election.
what happened after that?
There is still a lot of uncertainty about the formation of the government – the PML-N seems likely to form a coalition government with the PPP and MQM. Khan announced from prison that PTI would not join the PML-N or the Pakistan Peoples Party to form the government. The PTI is likely to form a provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as it has swept almost all the provincial seats. He may also try to form a provincial government in Punjab, but will face stiff resistance from the PML-N. Since the PTI candidates ran as independents, the party will face pressure from the exposure of its winning candidates to the temptations of rivals, especially the PML-N.
Even if the PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party were able to form a coalition government in Islamabad, the PTI would be in a position to disrupt its work, perhaps through street protests, court cases challenging the election results, and internal Parliament with its great representation. The military establishment may attempt to contain any PTI movements and enable the coalition government to embark on the task of governing. A hybrid approach in which the coalition and the military work together can nominally work, but it is structurally unstable, because it lacks a popular mandate, has no clarity about responsibility and risks rifts between the coalition government and the establishment.
It remains to be seen whether the military establishment is able to find a political solution to reduce the deep-seated anger among the Tehreek-e-Insaf's huge support base. The narrow path to minimal stability that the military might be tempted to take is to support a coalition led by the PML-N and supported by the PPP to enter into negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) while also ceding space to the PTI movement – including This and perhaps by releasing Khan in the future – to contain the protests against the new political system. In the best case scenario, there will be economic stability and a decline in political temperatures. Continued political bickering and intrigues are sure to dominate in the near term.
Economic challenges facing Pakistan
Pakistan also stands at an economic crossroads. In the past six months, due to a short-term bailout package provided by the International Monetary Fund that is scheduled to expire in March, Pakistan has found some fragile economic stability. Maintaining this stability after the end of the program requires urgent steps toward a new IMF program. Such a program is necessary for Pakistan to be able to manage its $25 to $30 billion annual external debt obligations. To this end, the new government must negotiate a massive multi-year IMF programme. This will require the government to commit to a path of fiscal discipline, unpopular tax reforms, privatization of state-owned enterprises and the withdrawal of energy subsidies, while also getting support from the United States, China and the Gulf powers at the IMF.
Negotiating such a program will be a challenge for the coalition government led by the Pakistan Muslim League's Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister. Not only will it have to forge consensus within the coalition on the difficult policy adjustments required by the IMF, but it may also have to do so amid strong protest from the Tehreek-e-Insaf. If the PML-N takes the lead on economic policy, it will have to address a serious credibility gap caused by the stonewalling of its former finance minister, Ishaq Dar, on IMF reform prescriptions in late 2022 and the first half of 2023. It can be amplified by Through alliance dynamics. Shehbaz Sharif still has the experience of closing a deal with the IMF, which he did in June 2023 as Prime Minister by personally negotiating with IMF Director General Kristalina Georgieva and sidelining Dar. If the PTI is able to form a government, it will also raise similar concerns; The party has also resisted economic reform in the past and has not recently presented any clear position on the economy. Khan also remains hesitant about engaging with the IMF.
In any scenario, timing is crucial to maintaining the hard-earned gains of the past six months. The delay in forming the government will make the transition to a new IMF program more difficult. But the rapid formation of a government that appoints a technically competent and empowered finance minister would encourage the IMF and Pakistan's partners to move quickly to provide the assistance Pakistan needs to stabilize its economy.
Implications for US policy
The United States, and indeed many countries concerned with Pakistan's stability, had hoped that the general elections would be an inflection point that would allow Pakistan to move beyond the consuming political crisis since the no-confidence vote against Khan in April 2022. But unfortunately, the elections, instead of resolving the crisis, created Greater uncertainty in Pakistan, and the credibility crisis facing the next government could lead to further polarization in Pakistani society. Ideally, the next government should focus on the economic and security crises facing Pakistan, but it is unclear whether it will have the political space or attention needed to forcefully address these challenges.
The evolving situation in Pakistan will force US decision-makers to be cautious about dealing with the new government. They will also have to calibrate a response that addresses domestic political turmoil and democratic backsliding in a way that does not exacerbate the political and economic crisis and further destabilize the country. Finally, they will have to deal with the consequences for American security interests in a region under a military command embroiled in greater controversy. Policymakers should be prepared that when a government is formed, they will be dealing with a political and military leadership that prioritizes the unstable domestic political situation rather than focusing on strategic challenges, including counterterrorism, Indian policy, and strategy. stability, and increasing strategic competition between the United States and China.
This article was originally published by the United States Institute of Peace.
