Pakistan polls: Army-orchestrated mockery of democracy

As a kid, I remember my uncle once bought a battery-operated car for me. It was a miniature version of an actual car that had a steering wheel as well. I used to sit on it for hours while my folks used the remote control to move it around. But not for a single moment did I disbelieve that I was not in control of that car. This reminds me of Pakistani politicians as the country goes for an election on Thursday. While the control of the country effectively rests with the deep state consisting of its military and intelligence establishment, almost every five years, Pakistanis and their leaders come to play this make-believe game called elections. This year, three main political leaders are in fray—Imran Khan, Nawaz Sharif, and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. Each has a weirder story than the other. Imran Khan is hugely popular, especially with the ‘Youthias’, a slang used to refer to the vast majority of the young population that worships this former cricketer as their leader. Imran Khan was a favourite of the Pakistani military as well when his political party, Tehreek-e-Insaf, won the 2018 elections with an unprecedented 16.9 million votes, the largest for any political party ever in the history of Pakistan. However, Khan soon fell out of favour with the Army. No one can dispute the fact that he was propped up and backed by the deep state as an alternative to Nawaz Sharif and his PML (N) party. However, Khan mistook this power as one earned by his own credentials and started challenging his backers, the Army. He started out by undermining Pakistan’s relationship with its traditional allies, such as the US, China, and even Saudi Arabia. At one point, he accused Washington of plotting to overthrow him; at another, he raised serious questions regarding the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Under him, Pakistan started tilting towards Turkey and Malaysia in order to create a new axis of Islam. Along with this, his equation with the Army soured beyond redemption when he started making military appointments without consulting General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the man who had backed him for power in the first place. There were even rumours that he won’t extend Bajwa’s service period as well. Khan’s U-turn against the Army cost him dearly, and today he is languishing in jail. So much so that even his party has been forced to fight polls without their election symbol, a cricket bat. If Imran Khan’s political career is all done and dusted for now, then Nawaz Sharif is back in favour with the military. He was brought back from a self-imposed exile in the UK ahead of the 2024 general elections, as also confirmed by his daughter Maryam Nawaz recently at a rally. There was a time when the military favoured Imran over Nawaz, but this time, he has emerged as a clear favourite, with Imran getting jail treatment and being given relief after relief in multiple court cases. Amidst the Army’s candidate Nawaz Sharif vs King of U-Turns Imran Khan is another player, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and his party, the PPP. Bilawal boasts of an illustrious legacy as he is the son of former PM Benazir Bhutto, but his political role appears to be insignificant in the larger scheme of things for now. As foreign minister in a caretaker government, he tried to put on a great show by bashing India, a prerequisite for all Pakistani politicians waiting to be picked by the generals, but it seems he will have to wait longer before he gets to play any major role in the usual Army-orchestrated drama called Pakistani politics. It is anyone’s guess that no matter who secures victory in the elections tomorrow, the real strings will lie in the hands of the military, effectively placing General Asim Munir, the current Chief of Army Staff, in control. He was ‘appointed’ in November 2022, and since then, he has made many attempts to steer Pakistan away from its manifest destiny of being a failed state. He is at the helm of a country that has more problems than solutions, and that’s clearly visible in the economic woes with historic inflation records, the security woes in the form of a separatist movement in Balochistan, as well as an emboldened faction of the Taliban, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, which is posing a major security threat. Today, Pakistan can’t boast of a friendly equation with any of its neighbours, including Iran, India, and Afghanistan, all equally disappointed with its record of being a state sponsor of terrorism. In times like these, Munir is trying to put a brave face forward by deploying rhetoric against them, but it clearly isn’t helping. Along with this, he is trying to make ‘geoeconomics’ and not ‘geopolitics’ a priority for the country. For a long time, Pakistan sold its locational USP to China and the US for the purpose of helping them entrench their strategic interests. Now Pakistan wants to offer itself as a connecting bridge to spur trade and investment in the region. Munir even tried to broker a funding deal with the UAE and Saudi Arabia to ease off the IMF bailout conditions. His efforts have also led to the opening of a single-window investment facilitation body, the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), to make Pakistan attractive for foreign investors. However, years of flirting with Islamic extremism and serving as a base for many terrorist outfits have hollowed out Pakistan. On Thursday, the military will choose its new puppet, and the hard reality that “Pakistan is a military that has a country” will remain as true as it always was. The author is a PhD from the Department of International Relations, South Asian University. She writes on India’s foreign policy. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_’s views._ Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News, India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.