Pakistan elections 2024: A short history of the country’s fraught experiments with democracy

A 23-year wait

Unlike India, the making of the constitution and holding of the first general elections — two of the key processes of building a democratic nation — were much delayed in Pakistan. This happened largely due to debates over issues like “the national language, the role of Islam, provincial representation, and the distribution of power between the centre and the provinces,” according to ‘Pakistan: A Political History’, a report based on Ayesha Jalal’s work for the Encyclopedia of Asian History and published by Asia Society, a non-profit organisation.

Even after Pakistan’s first constitution was finally implemented in March 1956, instability persisted. Between 1956 and 1958, three prime ministers, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, I I Chundrigar and Firoz Khan Noon, from three different political parties (Awami League, Muslim League and Republican Party) came to power. The chaos ultimately led General Mohammad Ayub Khan to carry out a military coup, putting national elections, slated to be held in February 1959, on hold indefinitely.

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It took more than a decade, and three main reasons, for the military rule to weaken: the country’s defeat against India in the 1965 war, urban unrest in West Pakistan, and the rise of Bengali nationalism in East Pakistan. As a result, the first general elections were held in 1970.

Bangladesh, Bhutto, and back to martial law

The 1970 national elections uncovered the growing regionalism and social conflict in the country.

The Pakistan People’s Party, led by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, emerged as the biggest party in West Pakistan by winning 81 seats, despite its defeat in Balochistan and the North-West Frontier Province. In the latter two regions, Islamic parties registered victory. In East Pakistan, the Awami League led by Mujibur Rahman, who had campaigned for a six-point programme of provincial autonomy, won 160 of the 162 seats in the province.

“The prospect of an Awami League’s government was a threat to politicians in West Pakistan who in conspiracy with the military leadership prevented Mujibur from taking the reins of power. This was the final straw for the east wing who was already fed up with their under-representation in all sectors of the government, economic deprivation and then the suppression of the democratic process,” according to the Asia Society report.

In March 1971, a revolt broke out in East Pakistan, which resulted in another war with India and the establishment of Bangladesh.

The crushing defeat of Pakistan’s military gave an opportunity to Bhutto to take the country in a new direction. He, however, failed to bring in any significant change. For instance, Bhutto’s land reform plans weren’t ambitious enough, his labour policy was repressive, and his economic policies were haphazard. Notably, he also relied on the military and civil bureaucracy to squash his opponents and didn’t try to build PPP as a mass-based national party.

The situation worsened after the 1977 general elections. PPP won the elections against its rival Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) — a coalition of nine political parties, dominated by Ismalists and conservatives. While Bhutto’s party got 58.6% of votes and 155 seats out of the total 200 seats, PNA received 35.8% of votes and just 36 seats. PNA alleged the elections were rigged and chaos ensued.

Bhutto imposed martial law and arrested opposition leaders. This gave General Zia-ul Haq a chance to seize power and Pakistan witnessed the second military coup on July 5, 1977.

Military takes a step back, but doesn’t relinquish control

The next general elections were held in 1985, but no political parties were permitted to participate. Every candidate contested in his or her individual name. Zia thought this would help him build a popular support base and it would be easier to control parliament without the influence of political parties on the representatives.

Despite the restrictions, the elections proved to be consequential for Pakistan for two main reasons. One, after the election results, elected parliament was allowed to form political parties, which gave birth to the two-party parliamentary system.

According to ‘The First 10 General Elections of Pakistan’, a research paper by Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi and Ijaz Shafi Gilani, and published by Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT), the “process gave birth to a Muslim League which subsequently became a key player in politics. It was birthed under military oversight, but assumed a character of its own over the period of its adulthood… Since 1985 Pakistan’s political scene thrived because the PPP and Pakistan Muslim League were able to accommodate large sections of Pakistani voters under their banners.”

Two, the Pakistani military realised that it didn’t need to execute a coup every time to control politics in the country. “It seems that they came to the conclusion that ‘oversight’ is better than overlordship,” the paper added.

To ensure this, Zia amended the 1973 Constitution — the second constitution of Pakistan — and changed the country’s governance from a parliamentary democracy to a semi-presidential system. The 8th Amendment gave more powers to him, including the power to remove the elected government of the prime minister.

Moreover, the military used the Political Cell of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to try to tilt election results in the favour of its favourites. For example, just before the 1988 elections — months after Zia’s death in a plane crash — ISI contrived the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) alliance, led by PML, to ensure that PPP, headed by Benazir Bhutto, didn’t get a majority.

In the 1990 elections — held after Benazir was dismissed by the President for alleged corruption and nepotism — ISI, on instructions of the military, distributed various sums of money to IJI leaders to help the party win the election. Owing to the military’s ‘oversight’, Nawaz Sharif became Pakistan’s prime minister for the first time.

Dictatorship returns

Although the military backed Nawaz Sharif in the elections for the longest time, fractures emerged in their relationship once he started to become a mass leader. As prime minister, Nawaz put forward a “popular agenda and a populist image”, according to the report, and used television to “promote his image as a forward looking person to deliver economic development”.

That’s why in the 1993 elections, the military helped Benazir get the top job. But they failed to thwart Nawaz in the next elections, held four years later, as his party PML-N got 46% of votes and 136 out of the total seats — PPP got just 18 seats.

“The electoral outcome of 1997 incapacitated the most potent instrument in (the) tool-box of military oversight. If the two major players were neck and neck, minor acts of favour or its denial could tilt the balance in either direction. But if the gap between the two was massively in one’s favour, then this method was no longer effective,” the report said.

As the oversight system crumbled, the military returned to the ‘overlord’ system and once again orchestrated a coup in 1999. This time it was General Pervez Musharraf who seized power. Musharraf, as the army chief, had planned and executed the 1999 Kargil War against India. His quest, however, turned out to be a catastrophic military failure.

The Asia Society report noted: “He soon (after the war) suspected that he did not have the political backing of the civil government in his aggressive quest in Kashmir. The combination of Shariff’s reluctance in the Kashmiri opposition, mounting factional disputes, terrorism all provided Musharraf with the justification to lead a coup to overthrow the civil government.”

Another shot at democracy

The next general elections were in 2002 — three years after the coup and a year after Musharraf declared himself as the president (before he met then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee). To maintain his grip on power, Musharraf established another faction of PML, known as PML-Q, and promoted it as the real Muslim League. His plans didn’t come to fruition as PML-Q didn’t get a majority. So, the president then created a wedge among the elected PPP representatives and formed the PPP-Patriot group to establish a military government at the Centre.

Musharraf’s exit came in 2008 after he locked horns with the Supreme Court and particularly Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry for criticising the army’s repression in the country. The president tried to oust the chief justice, who resisted and mobilised support throughout Pakistan, according to ‘The Pakistan Paradox: Instability and Resilience’ by Christophe Jaffrelot. On November 3, 2007, Musharraf declared a state of emergency but had to announce a general election due to protests and pressure from other countries.

The elections, however, were delayed as Benazir was assassinated on December 27, 2007 — Musharraf was accused of getting her killed and later faced trial for her murder.

The PPP got the most seats in the 2008 general elections and was followed by Musharraf’s PML-Q. The PPP formed the government in coalition with PML-N. While Yousaf Raza Gilani of the PPP became the prime minister, Benazir’s husband Asif Ali Zardari was elected as the president. Meanwhile, Musharraf had to resign in August 2008 and leave for London.

The 2013 elections gave a reason for Pakistan to rejoice — it marked the first time that a democratically-elected government was able to finish its tenure and hand over the reins of power to the one elected next.

The elections were also significant as they witnessed the rise of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. But it was Nawaz Sharif’s party which outperformed everyone. Out of the total 272 contestable seats in the National Assembly, PML-N won 126. It was short of a majority initially but once a handful of independent MPs joined the party, it formed the government.

‘Oversight’ system resurrected

The military’s intervention in Pakistani politics again came under the spotlight when Nawaz Sharif was ousted from power in 2017. The Supreme Court dismissed him from holding public office for life in the Panama Papers case. Nawaz alleged that the military had got rid of him through a “judicial coup”. The PML-N chief fell out with the military for challenging its foreign and security policy.

In the run-up to the 2018 elections, Pakistan’s Army propped up new parties to take away PML-N’s votes. Most importantly, it backed PTI’s Imran, who was widely referred to as “Laadla” (favourite son). To not much surprise, PTI won the maximum seats and formed the government.

But Imran didn’t remain the “Laadla” for long. Like Nawaz, he fell out with the military and was removed from the government in April 2022. He is currently in jail over charges of corruption, treason, etc. and has been barred from contesting the upcoming elections. On the contrary, Nawaz seems to be back in the army’s good books — he returned to Pakistan from self-imposed exile last year and has been allowed to run in the elections.

This is the third 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 fourth part on the Pakistan military’s influence on the country’s politics, click here.