Now is the time for Pakistan's voters to strengthen its pressured democracy

Many of the players — and institutions — in Pakistan's elections have come into question before the polls, but the only way to strengthen Pakistan's democracy is for voters to stand up and be counted.

AFP

Today, more than 105 million Pakistanis will go to the polls in only the second democratic transfer of power in the country’s 71-year history. But there are serious questions about how genuinely democratic this electoral process will be.

According to some of Pakistan’s political leaders, including former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and former president Asif Zardari, the elections have been rigged by ‘aliens’ and ‘angels’, oblique references to the country’s all-powerful security establishment.

The allegations of pre-poll rigging primarily stem from Sharif’s ouster from politics by judicial means over the past year, which he claims has been orchestrated by the military. 

Sharif was dismissed as prime minister last year for failing to disclose a company directorship, and in April banned from politics for life. On 13 July he and his daughter Maryam were jailed on corruption charges. 

Both the military and judiciary deny Sharif’s charges of collusion and political interference.

In isolation, Sharif’s imprisonment could be perceived as a much-belated act of accountability. For all his democratic fist-thumping, Sharif’s lawyers have not been able to stage a strong defence against corruption charges that have been dogging the industrialist-turned-politician since the 1990s. But the broader electoral landscape has been significantly compromised over recent months, lending credibility to Sharif’s claims.

Media censorship has reached levels not witnessed since General Zia ul Haq’s dictatorship in the 1980s: one of the largest news channels Geo TV was taken off the air for weeks for providing positive coverage of the Sharifs; the circulation of Dawn, the country’s largest English-language newspaper, has been disrupted since it published an interview with the former premier.

Politicians linked with Sharif’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN), have complained of intimidation and harassment, including demands that they defect from the party, ideally in support of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the PMLN’s main rival in this contest.

More than 15 PMLN politicians in the Punjab province alone have crossed party lines. Hundreds of PMLN party workers have been arrested in recent days. The party’s banners and flags are ripped off the streets of Lahore, Punjab’s provincial capital and the PMLN’s stronghold, each night.

Beyond eliminating Sharif from this year’s electoral equation, the judiciary has also pursued other senior PML-N politicians. The party’s foreign minister in April was dismissed from parliament by a lower court on the grounds that he was not ‘honest’; the former finance minister was charged with corruption; two PMLN ministers in May were slammed with contempt of court charges.

Just days before the election, an Islamabad High Court judge stated that the ISI, Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, was coercing court verdicts against the Sharif family, an allegation now under investigation by the Supreme Court chief justice.

Sharif has described the cumulative pressure as a soft coup, and has cast the PMLN’s election campaign as a struggle to protect the “sanctity of the vote”. This is a bold step in a country defined by the decades-long power struggle between its civilian government and military.

Within Pakistan’s lively Twittersphere, hand-wringing pro-democracy liberals have expressed support for the PML-N and announced intent to vote for the party on principle, despite broader disagreements with its manifesto and disappointment in its performance, including its failure to address the country’s crippling energy crisis or stabilise its economy.

The irony that Sharif’s entry into politics three decades ago was propped up by a military regime is lost on many in the face of the cumulative pressures against the PML-N.

In this context, rather than reify Pakistan’s democratic progress, today's elections will highlight the extent to which the country’s institutions are compromised. 

The military has strayed its constitutional bounds. The judiciary’s keenly timed interest in PML-N candidates’ transparency has raised serious questions about its integrity and independence. Recently liberalised media outlets lack freedom, and in the race for ratings have breached professional standards. 

Even the Election Commission of Pakistan, tasked with holding free and fair elections, is under scrutiny after granting the military unprecedented judicial powers to carry out on-the-spot trials on election day of those accused of breaking election laws.

Political parties, who should be defenders of Pakistan’s democracy, have also been exposed as weak in the face of pre-poll pressures. Rather than launch a vigorous pro-democracy campaign, the PML-N has been caught in an internal power struggle between Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shehbaz, highlighting the limitations of dynastic politics, and the problems inherent in a politics of personality rather than ideology.

All the mainstream political parties, including the favourite PTI, have entered into alliances with hate-inciting religious political parties affiliated with extremist and sectarian organisations.

When Pakistan votes, it not only has to confront the reality that the electoral process is in jeopardy, but also that the incoming government—whatever shape it takes—is unlikely to be up to the task of tackling the institutional meltdown. But this does not mean all hope is lost.

Pakistan’s electorate has never been larger, younger, more urban, or more informed. More than 100 million votes cast in earnest may be just what’s needed to counter the toxic effects of institutional infighting. 

If anyone can defend the sanctity of the Pakistani vote, it’s the voters themselves. Let’s hope they turn out en masse, thus casting a ballot for the democratic project itself, if not its compromised players.

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