Going the wrong way about elections in Pakistan

National elections are a mechanism that seeks to prevent political polarization from assuming debilitating proportions and keeping political tensions manageable. They also serve as a tool for periodic political accountability of those entrusted by the electorate to serve their interests and rebooting of manifestos that do not work.

Is this the case for Pakistan where an acute political crisis has brought the country virtually to a standstill? Elections for National Assembly are due later this year but the political narrative about them has become so poisoned that any outcome is all but guaranteed to militate against the very purpose of elections to reboot the legitimacy of an electoral mandate.

For one, the debate about elections – demanded immediately by the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and assiduously resisted by the ruling coalition of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif – has clouded urgent attention required to stem a tanking economy.

For another, the key de facto and de jure stakeholders associated with managing elections and influencing their outcomes – the Election Commission of Pakistan and the security establishment – have so much become a target of politicization and scandalization that whatever the outcomes of elections, they will be promptly rejected by the losing side.

The ruling coalition is hobbled in its primary task of functional governance because of the political polarization and questions about its legitimacy successfully, if unfairly, whipped up an angry Khan still smarting from his dubious distinction of becoming the first prime minister to voted out of the office by parliament.

It’s all about the playbook – politics is for elections and elections are for parliament. Unless Khan opts to influence terms for elections through parliament, Pakistan may well hold the elections – if the economy doesn’t collapse first, making the elections redundant – but may not generate acceptance of its results and therefore still not find what it wants: political stability.

Adnan Rehmat

Khan’s absolutist political positions – rejection of the chief election commissioner (CEC) as a bipartisan arbiter of election results, persistent inflammatory rhetoric against the army for lack of support in his aid and an aggressive stance against the judiciary for any attempts at making him submit to various legal cases against him – mean that he will employ these arguments against any election result that go against him.

On the flip side, the governing coalition, in its attempts to resist Khan’s calls for early election in the face of undeniable popularity of his extremist political rhetoric and favorable electoral chances, has put all its energies in focusing on the former prime minister, instead of arresting economic collapse and the attendant rising unpopularity because of it.

All this sets up the stage for probably the most bruising and polarized elections in Pakistan’s history. All three possible outcomes – a victory for Khan, a victory for the ruling coalition or a hung parliament – are going to be rejected by one or more protagonists and thereby generate a fresh round of political instability.

Many things are going wrong. Khan has torn up the political rule book and refuses to play by it. The ruling coalition instead of properly governing is bent upon trying to punish Khan because his party still rules two provinces and two other territories. And the army, despite a change at its helm, remains stunned into inaction facing unceasing targeting by Khan and failing to effectively signal its intentions of either staying in the game of political influence or out of it. No one is sure.

These factors are making it increasingly likely that elections may not succeed in their primary purpose of undoing polarization and creating the space for managing the economy and attending to the development needs of the electorate.

Pakistan is faced with a peculiar situation – the main political parties are in opposition or ruling camps in the center and the provinces. The PTI is not in the National Assembly having resigned en masse and so not eligible to perform a vital constitutional function: negotiate with the government a caretaker government tasked with holding free and fair polls.

Whether the PTI keeps its fragile government in Punjab intact over the next few weeks or promptly dissolves the legislature to press for elections in one or more provinces, its refusal to play by the rules means consensus caretaker governments will not be possible. This means the CEC, who Khan refuses to accept as a legitimate mandate-holder, will appoint the caretakers. Khan will neither accept the caretakers nor the election results – unless he gains outright victory.

It’s all about the playbook – politics is for elections and elections are for parliament. Unless Khan opts to influence terms for elections through parliament, Pakistan may well hold the elections – if the economy doesn’t collapse first, making the elections redundant – but may not generate acceptance of its results and therefore still not find what it wants: political stability.

- Adnan Rehmat is a Pakistan-based journalist, researcher and analyst with interests in politics, media, development and science.