Elections in Pakistan: A Populist Moment?

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 1667 ... September 16, 2018
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Elections in Pakistan: A Populist Moment?

Ayyaz Mallick

The third consecutive general election was held in Pakistan on July 25th, with the Pakistan Movement for Justice party (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, PTI) of celebrity-cricketer Imran Khan emerging as the largest party in parliament. For a country marred by long bouts of military rule, the continuity of (at least formal) democracy might be taken as good news. However, the conditions leading up to the elections, the prevailing balance of forces in the country, and the populist coalition forged by Khan and his party, may not bode well for the prospects of a substantive democracy centred on Pakistan’s working masses.

The lead-up to these general elections was marred by accusations of "pre-poll rigging" by the military-dominated establishment of... Pakistan in favour of the PTI and, especially, focussed on dislodging the incumbent Nawaz Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League faction (PML-N). Nawaz himself was the product of military engineering of Pakistani politics during the U.S.-sponsored regime of General Zia (1978 to 1988) and the petro-dollar sponsored Afghan war in the 1980s. Throughout the 1990s, Sharif endured an uneven relationship with the security establishment until things came to a head in his ouster through General Musharraf’s coup in 1999. Having fashioned himself as a pro-"development" leader, Sharif secured a majority in the 2013 elections and became Prime Minister.

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