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Journalism of Courage
Pakistanis voted in national elections on Thursday (February 8), and most commentators believe Nawaz Sharif will be Prime Minister again.
But this presumption of victory is not based on the level of popular support that his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), enjoys. By most accounts, the most popular party in Pakistan at the moment is the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), whose leader Imran Khan is in jail, and debarred from contesting.
Like Imran now, Nawaz too once faced inquiries and allegations of corruption, due to which he stepped down from the PM’s post in 2017 and subsequently left the country.
His win now is being predicted thanks to the Pakistani military, which has influenced power transitions in the country since 1947. It is the Army that ensured Nawaz Sharif both came to power and lost power earlier; it is also the Army that orchestrated both the rise and fall of Imran Khan.
It is due in very large measure to the Army that no Prime Minister has so far served for a full five-year term. The generals, who have carried out three coups so far, are the most powerful political players in Pakistan. This is the story of the Army’s role in Pakistan’s politics.
In his book ‘India vs Pakistan: Why Can’t We Just Be Friends?’, former Pakistani diplomat Husain Haqqani wrote of the disproportionate resources that the military held from the beginning.
“Pakistan’s share out of Partition comprised 21 per cent of British India’s population and 17 per cent of its revenue… Under the terms of Partition, Pakistan received 30 per cent of British India’s army, 40 per cent of its navy, and 20 per cent of its air force,” he wrote.
The Raj identified certain groups as “martial forces” for the British Indian military. Among them were Pashtuns and Punjabi Muslims, who were mostly from the regions that became part of Pakistan after the Partition.
The first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, allocated 75% of the first budget in 1948 to defence and to cover the salaries and maintenance costs of the forces. “Thus, Pakistan was not like other countries that raise an army to deal with threats they face; it had inherited a large army that needed a threat if it was to be maintained,” Haqqani wrote.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s founding father, did not envision the military’s supremacy. In 1948, in a speech at the Army Staff College, Quetta, Jinnah said: “Do not forget that the armed forces are the servants of the people. You do not make national policy; it is we, the civilians, who decide these issues and it is your duty to carry out these tasks with which you are entrusted.”
Pakistan’s military has done the exact opposite. In 2022, former Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa was candid that the military had “unconstitutionally interfered in politics”.
The respected Pakistani newspaper Dawn noted at the time that the “army’s interference in politics has been widespread and has ranged from dislodging civilian governments through coups to indirectly controlling weak dispensations”, and that “political leaders have…quite readily ceded space to the military due to their weaknesses allowing the institutional boundaries to be breached.”
In his book ‘The Army and the Democracy’, the Pakistani academic Aqil Shah wrote that the military had inherited the British Indian Army’s mistrust for politicians, and was driven by the threat it perceived from India.
“The Pakistani military had inherited an apolitical professionalism from the British Indian Army… But military officers (and civil servants) had also imbibed the colonial officials’ view of nationalist politicians as untrustworthy, good-for-nothing agitators,” Shah wrote.
But it was the perceived threat from India that shaped civil-military relations “more than any other factor”, according to Shah. “It spurred the militarization of the Pakistani state in the early years and…provided the context in which the generals could increase their influence in domestic politics and national security policy without leaving the barracks,” he wrote.
In the book ‘Military, State and Society in Pakistan’, former Punjab Chief Minister Hassan Askari Rizvi argued that concerns of “survival” fed the impulse of “monolithic nationalism”, which led to the development of the military being privileged over developing democratic institutions and processes such as Parliament, civil society, and media.
“State survival became the primary concern of the rulers of Pakistan, who equated it with an assertive federal government, strong defence posture, high defence expenditure and an emphasis on monolithic nationalism,” Rizvi wrote.
While in India, the Congress successfully transitioned from being at the forefront of the independence movement to playing the role of a popular representative political party, the Muslim League could not do the same.
Leaders after Jinnah (who died in 1948) and Liaquat (who was assassinated in 1951) “did not possess a national stature, lacked imagination and were unable to inspire the people, let alone deal with difficult political and economic problems”, Rizvi wrote.
“Many had a feudal or semi-feudal background and were primarily motivated by their personal ambitions and parochial considerations”, he added.
The Army took power directly thrice
FIRST COUP, 1958: “Much like its counterparts in Asian and Latin American militaries during the Cold War, the Pakistani military leadership believed that centralized authority was key to nation building because it could ensure uniform political and economic modernization of society, which would then deprive venal politicians of the opportunity to exploit people’s ethnic sentiments,” Shah wrote.
Thus, amid an economic and political crisis in 1958, General Mohammad Ayub Khan set aside the government and suspended political activities. Among the people, there was a sense of support for the military, which legitimised the takeover.
SECOND COUP, 1977: The humiliating defeat by India and the dismemberment of the country in 1971 darkened the national mood. The results of the 1977 elections triggered allegations of rigging against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) from the opposition Pakistan National Alliance (PNA).
After Bhutto imposed martial law, General Zia-ul Haq seized power in a coup in 1977. Bhutto was hanged in 1979.
THIRD COUP: In 1999, fearing the consolidation of power under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf staged a coup. Among the disagreements between Musharraf and Nawaz was the general’s push to initiate a conflict with India in Kashmir to claim territory.
India punished Pakistan for Musharraf’s misadventure in Kargil, but the general was to soon depose the Prime Minister who had appointed him to the post.
Shah wrote: “In a democracy, the military (or other state institutions) cannot be above the rule of law. However, the Pakistani military operates outside the purview of the civilian legal system with impunity because it considers itself above the law…”
The role of the military has evolved over time. “In 2007-2008, the military extricated itself from power in the face of anti-regime protests… Since 2008, the generals have tolerated political democracy because direct military rule has been seen as antithetical to the military’s image and interests,” Shah wrote.
“In almost pendulum-like fashion, it appears the military has gone from governorship back to guardianship,” he said.
In 2018, the Army chose Imran over Nawaz. But once Imran, who enjoyed widespread public support, became critical of the military, he was hit with many accusations that finally led to his arrest on May 9, 2023. His enraged supporters attacked more than 20 military installations and state buildings, including the Army headquarters in Rawalpindi.
And now, Nawaz is again the establishment’s choice. Pakistan’s complex civil-military relationship will continue to determine its politics for the foreseeable future.
This is the fourth part of our series of explainers on the 2024 Pakistan elections. To read the first part on 10 data points that explain the polls, click here. For the second part on the key players, click here. For the third part on the history of Pakistan’s experiments with democracy, click here.
