Pakistan polls: Having lost its prestige, the Army has a few ways ahead

So on a dug-up pitch, Imran Khan’s roaring independents, as good a name as any for an IPL team, have reversed the ball and clean-bowled the Army. However, this match is playing out in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and the third umpire is General Asim Munir, and for him, clean bowling is not going to be good enough. However, the verdict and its underlying message—that an Imran Khan in jail sentenced for over twenty years, his party dismembered and not allowed to contest elections, without significant funding, and with a gun on its head is returning with a huge verdict—is a lightning bolt for the Pakistani military establishment. The narrative is clear: this election was a farce. In a fair battle, Khan was looking at a landslide that would bury not just the opposition but the military. Pakistan’s economic challenges, including high inflation, unemployment, and a looming debt crisis, have further undermined the military’s legitimacy. As the country grapples with economic instability of the kind it has never seen, many Pakistanis have grown disillusioned with both civilian and military leadership, viewing them as a toxic mix. The military’s failure to address these economic issues has fueled resentment and eroded its credibility in the eyes of the public. Now the Army stands totally discredited. That makes it very dangerous. The political culture of Pakistan, beyond the general election, and the politics hold clues for the mandate. The attacks on the Army on May 9 last year, when cantonments burned and the corps commander’s house was attacked in Rawalpindi, the nerve centre of power in Pakistan, were unprecedented. Even seasoned Pakistan watchers could not have envisioned that humiliation; those attacks went beyond the physical affront and dealt a blow to the prestige of the Army. In Pakistan’s political culture, prestige is everything, and once lost, the centre of gravity shifts. The election results, whichever way you interpret them, reflect the stark reality that the Pakistan Army does not command prestige anymore. The economic misery of inflation unofficially touching 40 per cent, humiliations of missile attacks by Iran and border attacks by the Taliban, and the harsh terms of the IMF loan are death by a thousand cuts that have shredded the army’s Izzat. Now the army has three options, and all of them are bad. The first and most likely is to stitch up a coalition and install Nawaz Sharif. This will delegitimise the election and open it up to the allegation of a rigged verdict. The second is to lure, through coercion and corruption—a tried and tested Pakistani army formula—the independent candidates of Imran Khan’s party to join that pre-constructed coalition. This will open a dangerous flank to the massed street protests. The third is to offer Imran a window of compliance, a grand bargain where he tones down his anti-Army and anti-US agenda. But this too is fraught with danger for the army, for once in power, Imran Khan can choose martyrdom and cause mayhem. This match will not be decided in a super-over. It will be decided beyond the boundary. Get ready for an even more unstable, poorer, and increasingly less relevant Pakistan with Nawaz Sharif in power on a looted mandate. These are troubled times for Pakistan in deeply troubled water. Expect a lot of fishing by India, the US, the Taliban, and Iran as the sovereignty of Pakistan is severely eroded. The larger fact again goes back to strategic culture, even as the recent Bangladesh elections underlined that democracy has little role in societies with an Islamic majority. Despite the Arab Spring moment here in Pakistan, the military will rule. It’s the barrel of the gun, stupid! The writer is a senior journalist with expertise in defence. 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.