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Pakistan: Between Democratization and Jihadism
Analysis
May 10, 2013.
Pakistan will hold parliamentary elections May 11 -- the first vote held after a democratically elected government completed its five-year constitutional term. This democratic consolidation comes as the country faces the worst crisis since the secession of East Pakistan in the form of a ferocious jihadist insurgency. The vote comes amid economic difficulties and a major wave of jihadist attacks designed to undermine the democratic process targeting both secular and Islamist politicians campaigning for office. It is also the first election in which the emergence of a third national force, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, is seen as highly likely.
To the extent that opinion polls can be relied upon, the election will produce a much more fragmented legislature than the outgoing one, but conservative right-wing nationalist forces will dominate the new legislature. Regardless of its composition, the next coalition government will be tackling two core issues: security and the economy. Its policies will be greatly influenced by the regional security environment being shaped by the drawdown of NATO troops from neighboring Afghanistan.
Analysis
Pakistan was founded as a sovereign nation-state in 1947 when British-ruled India was partitioned. Its first years were marred by unstable civilian governments manipulated by civilian bureaucrats -- a period that ended in 1958 when the country's first coup established the military regime led by Field Marshal Ayub Khan, who remained in power until 1969. The state as it exists today, however, was the result of its first free and fair elections held by the country's second military regime in 1970.
The outcome of that election polarized the country's eastern and western regions geographically separated by India. The Bengali ethno-nationalist party, the Awami League, based in East Pakistan, swept the polls but was not allowed to form a government by the West Pakistan-based military regime, which opposed the party's separatist agenda. The political struggle quickly turned into a civil war, which in late 1971 turned into the third Indo-Pakistani war after New Delhi intervened militarily on the side of the Bengali separatists. Less than a month later, the eastern wing seceded to become the independent country of Bangladesh after the defeat of Pakistani troops.
Within days of the end of the war, Pakistan's military ruler, Gen. Yahya Khan, resigned and handed power to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the founder of the Pakistan People's Party, which had come in second place in the 1970 election. Three years later, the Bhutto government crafted the country's first constitution, which has been the basis for the eight elections held since then.
Past Elections
The elections held in 1977, which gave the ruling Pakistan People's Party an overwhelming majority, were marred by allegations of systematic electoral fraud and mass unrest organized by the opposition, which allowed the army to reassert itself through the third military regime led by Gen. Muhammud Zia-ul-Haq. The Zia regime -- which also lasted 11 years -- organized the second election in 1985, in which only individuals -- not parties -- were allowed to run. The opposition boycotted this election, and in May 1988 the military dictator dismissed the legislature that resulted from the vote after he developed differences with the elected officials. Zia's death in a mysterious plane crash three months later ushered in an era of civilian governance during which three elections were held in quick succession (1988, 1990 and 1993) that produced short-lived weak coalition governments led either by the Pakistan People's Party or the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
The government that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz formed after the sixth election in 1997 was the first one to have a two-thirds majority but was overthrown by the country's last military dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in the country's fourth military coup in 1999. The Musharraf regime organized the seventh election in 2002 after considerable constitutional engineering, which resulted in the newly formed pro-military faction of the Pakistan Muslim League and an Islamist alliance taking the bulk of the seats (with the exception of the manipulated 2002 vote, Islamist parties have never managed to win more than a handful of seats).
The last election was held in early 2008, less than three months after Musharraf was forced to step down as army chief in the wake of a democratic uprising. Once again the Pakistan People's Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz won the largest number of seats, with the former leading a coalition government at the federal level and the latter taking control of the government in the core province of Punjab. This arrangement proved to be durable -- marking the first time in Pakistan's history that a parliament completed its full five-year constitutional term.
First Democratic Transition and Beyond
The 2013 parliamentary elections thus represent the first time that the country will undergo a democratic transition of power. This consolidation comes amid Pakistan's largest crisis in decades. In the nearly 12 years since the United States invaded neighboring Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks, Islamabad has seen its writ being eroded by an insurgency waged by Pakistani Taliban rebels who, unlike their Afghan counterparts, subscribe to the transnational jihadism of al Qaeda.
The security situation has compounded the country's chronic economic problems caused by instability, rampant corruption and political economic mismanagement. Making matters worse is the near collapse of the country's power and energy sectors, which has eroded industrial output and other commercial activity to dangerous levels. In turn, these economic conditions continue to fuel lawlessness and public dissatisfaction, especially with the outgoing Pakistan People's Party government, which despite being able to complete its five-year term, has been unable to deliver on issues of governance.
It is this national disillusionment with the traditional political parties that has allowed for the recent rise of Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf as a potential third force. Though it has made huge waves among the public in the past 18 months, the May 11 election will be a litmus test of the party's ability to make inroads into the rural areas, where the bulk of Pakistanis live and which are traditional strongholds of the national and regional parties.
As the leader of the previous coalition government, the Pakistan People's Party is expected to suffer major losses in the elections. Its traditional rival, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (which governed the country's core Punjab province during the last five years), as several recent opinion polls show, is expected to make a strong showing. In many ways, the contest is between the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf -- both right-wing forces. While Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf supporters see it as the harbinger of genuine change, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has the benefit of experience. During its previous stints in power, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz was seen as having managed the economy better than the Pakistan People's Party, given that its leadership, the Sharif clan, is a major entrepreneurial family.
Adding to the uncertainty of the outcome is the fact that several regional parties based in the other three provinces -- Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan -- will also win seats. The other and more unusual factor is the wave of attacks from jihadists (political violence is not unheard of in Pakistan, but this is the first time that jihadists have tried to sabotage an election in such an organized manner). The jihadists are trying to prevent the maturing of Pakistani democracy, which is a threat to their plans to turn the country into a launchpad for a global caliphate. They are eyeing the NATO drawdown as an opportunity to enhance their regional influence, and political stability in Pakistan would hamper their ambitions.
Security and Economy
In fact, the biggest item on the next government's agenda will be how to deal with the domestic insurgency and manage the drawdown of Western forces, especially since talks between Washington and the Afghan Taliban have failed to make headway. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf have said that they will focus on negotiations with the Pakistani Taliban rebels. It is not clear how that can be accomplished, since the Pakistani jihadists have an agenda that contradicts the constitution of the country.
At best, such negotiations could lead to a cease-fire, because both the jihadists and the government have an interest in a truce. This could give the government a much-needed respite to focus on the economy, which former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's party has identified as its main tool for tackling religious extremism and terrorism. A top Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz leader, Pervaiz Rashid, was quoted in a May 3 Wall Street Journal report as saying that his party's first priority is to fast-track the country toward economic development, without which security issues cannot be handled.
The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf has also promised to implement policies that would overhaul the political system in a revolutionary way. Both Khan and Sharif in their own ways have been pushing a "Save Pakistan" mantra. There is a realization within the country that if democracy does not lead to economic revival, circumstances would feed the growing public disillusionment with democratic governance, especially given the performance of the democratically elected Pakistan People's Party-led government during the past five years.
It is this latent sentiment that the Taliban hope to exploit to further their radical Islamist agenda. Therefore, the next government will be under pressure to deliver for reasons beyond self-interest and re-election. There is a considerable danger that without economic revival the country's fragile democratic system could be undermined, leading to revolutionary conditions that the jihadists would be able to exploit and thereby undermine an already weakened state.
In the immediate term, though, the Taliban rebels will want to take advantage of a pause in military offensives in order to rebuild themselves. This means that any truce will be short-lived because the Pakistani government cannot allow the Taliban rebels to revive themselves, especially in the wake of the post-2014 security environment in Afghanistan that Islamabad needs to manage and the jihadists would like to use as strategic depth against the state.
What makes a policy of negotiating with the jihadists even more difficult to implement is that the next parliament will be even more fragmented than the current one. Furthermore, the next government, despite the electoral rhetoric, will still need to negotiate its counter-jihadist plans with the United States. The next government will also preside over the appointment of a new army leadership, given that the current chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani and many of his top three-star generals are due to retire in October. This complicates security policy, because both right-wing parties would like to see greater civilian control over the military. Thus, it is unlikely that the new government will be able to make much progress on the issue of domestic and regional security anytime soon.
Their rhetoric notwithstanding, both the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf realize that tackling the security situation, especially as NATO is drawing down in Afghanistan, is at best a long-term effort. Therefore, the next government will likely try to focus on economic revival to the extent that the security circumstances will allow it. There is only so much economic activity that can take place in a country dealing with an insurgency, especially considering that the counterinsurgency efforts of the last seven years have been a huge drain on Pakistan's existing financial resources.
Read more: Pakistan: Between Democratization and Jihadism | Stratfor
Analysis
May 10, 2013.
Pakistan will hold parliamentary elections May 11 -- the first vote held after a democratically elected government completed its five-year constitutional term. This democratic consolidation comes as the country faces the worst crisis since the secession of East Pakistan in the form of a ferocious jihadist insurgency. The vote comes amid economic difficulties and a major wave of jihadist attacks designed to undermine the democratic process targeting both secular and Islamist politicians campaigning for office. It is also the first election in which the emergence of a third national force, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, is seen as highly likely.
To the extent that opinion polls can be relied upon, the election will produce a much more fragmented legislature than the outgoing one, but conservative right-wing nationalist forces will dominate the new legislature. Regardless of its composition, the next coalition government will be tackling two core issues: security and the economy. Its policies will be greatly influenced by the regional security environment being shaped by the drawdown of NATO troops from neighboring Afghanistan.
Analysis
Pakistan was founded as a sovereign nation-state in 1947 when British-ruled India was partitioned. Its first years were marred by unstable civilian governments manipulated by civilian bureaucrats -- a period that ended in 1958 when the country's first coup established the military regime led by Field Marshal Ayub Khan, who remained in power until 1969. The state as it exists today, however, was the result of its first free and fair elections held by the country's second military regime in 1970.
The outcome of that election polarized the country's eastern and western regions geographically separated by India. The Bengali ethno-nationalist party, the Awami League, based in East Pakistan, swept the polls but was not allowed to form a government by the West Pakistan-based military regime, which opposed the party's separatist agenda. The political struggle quickly turned into a civil war, which in late 1971 turned into the third Indo-Pakistani war after New Delhi intervened militarily on the side of the Bengali separatists. Less than a month later, the eastern wing seceded to become the independent country of Bangladesh after the defeat of Pakistani troops.
Within days of the end of the war, Pakistan's military ruler, Gen. Yahya Khan, resigned and handed power to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the founder of the Pakistan People's Party, which had come in second place in the 1970 election. Three years later, the Bhutto government crafted the country's first constitution, which has been the basis for the eight elections held since then.
Past Elections
The elections held in 1977, which gave the ruling Pakistan People's Party an overwhelming majority, were marred by allegations of systematic electoral fraud and mass unrest organized by the opposition, which allowed the army to reassert itself through the third military regime led by Gen. Muhammud Zia-ul-Haq. The Zia regime -- which also lasted 11 years -- organized the second election in 1985, in which only individuals -- not parties -- were allowed to run. The opposition boycotted this election, and in May 1988 the military dictator dismissed the legislature that resulted from the vote after he developed differences with the elected officials. Zia's death in a mysterious plane crash three months later ushered in an era of civilian governance during which three elections were held in quick succession (1988, 1990 and 1993) that produced short-lived weak coalition governments led either by the Pakistan People's Party or the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
The government that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz formed after the sixth election in 1997 was the first one to have a two-thirds majority but was overthrown by the country's last military dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in the country's fourth military coup in 1999. The Musharraf regime organized the seventh election in 2002 after considerable constitutional engineering, which resulted in the newly formed pro-military faction of the Pakistan Muslim League and an Islamist alliance taking the bulk of the seats (with the exception of the manipulated 2002 vote, Islamist parties have never managed to win more than a handful of seats).
The last election was held in early 2008, less than three months after Musharraf was forced to step down as army chief in the wake of a democratic uprising. Once again the Pakistan People's Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz won the largest number of seats, with the former leading a coalition government at the federal level and the latter taking control of the government in the core province of Punjab. This arrangement proved to be durable -- marking the first time in Pakistan's history that a parliament completed its full five-year constitutional term.
First Democratic Transition and Beyond
The 2013 parliamentary elections thus represent the first time that the country will undergo a democratic transition of power. This consolidation comes amid Pakistan's largest crisis in decades. In the nearly 12 years since the United States invaded neighboring Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks, Islamabad has seen its writ being eroded by an insurgency waged by Pakistani Taliban rebels who, unlike their Afghan counterparts, subscribe to the transnational jihadism of al Qaeda.
The security situation has compounded the country's chronic economic problems caused by instability, rampant corruption and political economic mismanagement. Making matters worse is the near collapse of the country's power and energy sectors, which has eroded industrial output and other commercial activity to dangerous levels. In turn, these economic conditions continue to fuel lawlessness and public dissatisfaction, especially with the outgoing Pakistan People's Party government, which despite being able to complete its five-year term, has been unable to deliver on issues of governance.
It is this national disillusionment with the traditional political parties that has allowed for the recent rise of Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf as a potential third force. Though it has made huge waves among the public in the past 18 months, the May 11 election will be a litmus test of the party's ability to make inroads into the rural areas, where the bulk of Pakistanis live and which are traditional strongholds of the national and regional parties.
As the leader of the previous coalition government, the Pakistan People's Party is expected to suffer major losses in the elections. Its traditional rival, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (which governed the country's core Punjab province during the last five years), as several recent opinion polls show, is expected to make a strong showing. In many ways, the contest is between the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf -- both right-wing forces. While Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf supporters see it as the harbinger of genuine change, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has the benefit of experience. During its previous stints in power, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz was seen as having managed the economy better than the Pakistan People's Party, given that its leadership, the Sharif clan, is a major entrepreneurial family.
Adding to the uncertainty of the outcome is the fact that several regional parties based in the other three provinces -- Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan -- will also win seats. The other and more unusual factor is the wave of attacks from jihadists (political violence is not unheard of in Pakistan, but this is the first time that jihadists have tried to sabotage an election in such an organized manner). The jihadists are trying to prevent the maturing of Pakistani democracy, which is a threat to their plans to turn the country into a launchpad for a global caliphate. They are eyeing the NATO drawdown as an opportunity to enhance their regional influence, and political stability in Pakistan would hamper their ambitions.
Security and Economy
In fact, the biggest item on the next government's agenda will be how to deal with the domestic insurgency and manage the drawdown of Western forces, especially since talks between Washington and the Afghan Taliban have failed to make headway. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf have said that they will focus on negotiations with the Pakistani Taliban rebels. It is not clear how that can be accomplished, since the Pakistani jihadists have an agenda that contradicts the constitution of the country.
At best, such negotiations could lead to a cease-fire, because both the jihadists and the government have an interest in a truce. This could give the government a much-needed respite to focus on the economy, which former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's party has identified as its main tool for tackling religious extremism and terrorism. A top Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz leader, Pervaiz Rashid, was quoted in a May 3 Wall Street Journal report as saying that his party's first priority is to fast-track the country toward economic development, without which security issues cannot be handled.
The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf has also promised to implement policies that would overhaul the political system in a revolutionary way. Both Khan and Sharif in their own ways have been pushing a "Save Pakistan" mantra. There is a realization within the country that if democracy does not lead to economic revival, circumstances would feed the growing public disillusionment with democratic governance, especially given the performance of the democratically elected Pakistan People's Party-led government during the past five years.
It is this latent sentiment that the Taliban hope to exploit to further their radical Islamist agenda. Therefore, the next government will be under pressure to deliver for reasons beyond self-interest and re-election. There is a considerable danger that without economic revival the country's fragile democratic system could be undermined, leading to revolutionary conditions that the jihadists would be able to exploit and thereby undermine an already weakened state.
In the immediate term, though, the Taliban rebels will want to take advantage of a pause in military offensives in order to rebuild themselves. This means that any truce will be short-lived because the Pakistani government cannot allow the Taliban rebels to revive themselves, especially in the wake of the post-2014 security environment in Afghanistan that Islamabad needs to manage and the jihadists would like to use as strategic depth against the state.
What makes a policy of negotiating with the jihadists even more difficult to implement is that the next parliament will be even more fragmented than the current one. Furthermore, the next government, despite the electoral rhetoric, will still need to negotiate its counter-jihadist plans with the United States. The next government will also preside over the appointment of a new army leadership, given that the current chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani and many of his top three-star generals are due to retire in October. This complicates security policy, because both right-wing parties would like to see greater civilian control over the military. Thus, it is unlikely that the new government will be able to make much progress on the issue of domestic and regional security anytime soon.
Their rhetoric notwithstanding, both the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf realize that tackling the security situation, especially as NATO is drawing down in Afghanistan, is at best a long-term effort. Therefore, the next government will likely try to focus on economic revival to the extent that the security circumstances will allow it. There is only so much economic activity that can take place in a country dealing with an insurgency, especially considering that the counterinsurgency efforts of the last seven years have been a huge drain on Pakistan's existing financial resources.
Read more: Pakistan: Between Democratization and Jihadism | Stratfor
