Candidates backed by Imran Khan defied all odds to become the largest group in Pakistan’s parliament but an alliance of parties, which has lost the people’s trust making them incapable of delivering and most crucially on the economy, is being cobbled together again
Imran Khan’s politics of defiance and his preference for jail over compromise have paid off. And how! Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) emerged as the single-largest group in the national parliament in the February 8 election against possibly all odds. The stunning turnaround comes after his refusal to accept his removal from power in 2022 prompted a sweeping crackdown, an exodus of leaders from the PTI, and a series of convictions on flimsy charges.
As if that were not enough, the PTI was stripped of its poll symbol at the last moment. It was denied a level playing field to mobilize support. An internet shutdown and delay in announcement poll results allowed manipulations to keep Imran Khan’s archrival Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) in the game. Yet, PTI managed to get 93 out of 264 seats, PML(N) 75, and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) 54.
Imran Khan’s political rise after two decades in the wilderness threatened to upend a culture of patronage and dynastic politics sans ideology. It forced almost all parties to gang up and oust Imran Khan from power in 2022 after being at each other’s throats for decades. There is another attempt to cobble together an alliance of those parties, which have lost the people’s trust making them incapable of delivering and most crucially fixing the economy, which has been contracting.
The country’s top posts are expected to remain with the Sharif family. Shehbaz Sharif, who took over as the Prime Minister following the ouster of Imran Khan could get the post again. A three-time chief minister of the most populous Punjab province, Shehbaz Sharif is the younger brother of three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The elder Sharif, who was allowed to go to the UK in 2019 for treatment while serving a prison term for graft, returned in October hoping to get a fourth term as the head of the king’s party. He was expected to opt out of the race for the top post since the election results have been up to their expectations.
Shehbaz Sharif, who has faced serious graft cases, was nominated for the prime minister’s post in 2022 since his brother and his political heir, Maryam Nawaz, were then ineligible for the post because of their disqualification following a conviction of corruption. Maryam Nawaz could be the chief minister of the country’s most populous Punjab province as part of an intra-family compromise. Hamza Shehbaz, son of Shehbaz Sharif, who has been the Punjab chief minister, has been a contender for the top provincial post, which has long been rumoured to be a reason for a rift within the family.
Shehbaz Sharif took on the mantle of the PML (N) when his brother was disqualified over corruption charges. The charges were linked to the leaked documents that showed his children owned properties in London. An investigation into the Sharifs’ assets followed. It emerged Nawaz Sharif also withheld his Dubai-based employment in the nomination papers for the 2013 elections.
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In an article in the Independent following Sharif’s ouster in 2017, Kunwar Khuldune Shahid noted it ‘could bolster a culture of accountability and uproot the dynastic politics epitomized by the Sharif family.’ But another return of the Sharifs with Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister proved dynastic politics has deep roots in Pakistan, where no political party has any real commitment to ideology. Most political leaders inherit leadership and end up passing it on to their children.
Thicker Than Water
Kinship and patronage networks have more salience. The Sharifs have been in and out of power since the 1980s and have repeatedly survived thanks to a mastery of these networks, which permeate every aspect of society. Kinship plays an important role in voting patterns. A Gallup survey in 2008 showed that 37% of rural and 27% of urban voters attended community meetings to decide whom to vote for.
The Sharifs belong to the influential Amritsari-Kashmiri community. They have built alliances with other communities such as the Arians. The Arain-Kashmiri alliance has been so formidable that except for two, all mayors of Lahore since 1947 have been from these two communities. The Sharifs have also stitched other similar alliances. They also have a business empire and base among traders in Punjab, where around 60% of the country’s population is concentrated.
In a 2012 article, Pakistani journalist Amir Mateen wrote that the Amritsari Kashmiris virtually run Lahore and their political influence extends even further. He wrote that Sharif’s family had encouraged pockets of Amritsari Kashmiri power in every major city of central Punjab. Kashmiris have always held key Cabinet posts in Sharif’s government. His move to name fellow Kashmiri Ziauddin Butt precipitated the coup that cut short his second term in power in 1999. The deep pockets and business empire of the Sharifs allow them to nurture kinship and patronage networks for an assured base, which has helped them make repeated comebacks.
The ideological flexibility of the Sharifs has also helped them. Nawaz Sharif started as a protégé of military leader Zia-ul-Haq, whose conservatism makes him the most hated ruler among the liberals. Nawaz Sharif has transformed from the darlings of the conservatives three decades back to that of liberals now. He has cultivated a favourable image among the liberals including through his continuous advocacy for better ties with India and supporting the minority rights.
In 2017, Nawaz Sharif chose a Hindu temple complex in Punjab’s Katas Raj to warn hardliners against preaching animosity while calling hate-mongering unlawful. He promised the welfare of minorities and reaffirmed his belief in equal citizenship at a function following a Hindu ritual at the centuries-old complex associated with Shiva.
In December 2016, Sharif re-named a centre at Pakistan’s best-known university after Nobel laureate Abdus Salam from the Ahmadiyya community, which has been persecuted in the country. Sharif’s government got the Hindu Marriage Bill passed in September 2016. In November 2015, Sharif attended a Diwali function that began with the recitation of Hindu and Muslim prayers and promised Hindus he would support them even if their oppressors were Muslims.
Sharif’s government also executed Mumtaz Qadri, who assassinated Punjab Governor Salman Taseer over alleged blasphemy. Sharif is known as an infrastructure-obsessed and pragmatic businessman-politician, who has given Pakistan perhaps the best network of motorways in the region. He liberalised Pakistan’s economy in the 1990s. Sharif’s pragmatism had him join hands with the PPP despite a bitter history of adversarial politics in the 1990s.
Art Of The Possible
Former President Asif Ali Zardari, who now helms PPP, has been known as ‘Mr Ten Percent’ for the deals he cut for contracts when his wife Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister. He defines the idea of politics as an art of the possible. Zardari has been jailed over corruption, smuggling, and murder charges. But he has also continued to remain relevant thanks to a separate set of kinship alliances. These ties favour traditional parties. They are stacked against politicians such as Imran Khan, who has commanded little sway in villages, where kinships are a bigger factor.
Against this backdrop, the Pakistani polity is largely bereft of any real ideology with power the end for most political parties and means for making money. Nawaz Sharif continued denying owning flats in London but has been staying in one of them since 2019.
Zardari, who played a key role in stitching together the 2022 alliance against Imran Khan and has also been accused of offshore assets, was handed over PPP’s leadership after his wife’s assassination. Benazir Bhutto is believed to have left a will naming him as some sort of a regent. Their son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, was the PPP’s prime ministerial candidate for the 2024 election. He served as the foreign minister in Shehbaz Sharif’s last government. Zardari is believed to be working behind the scenes to make his son the third Prime Minister from their family.
Th obsession of Imran Khan with holding traditional politicians accountable continues to unite almost all political parties, including PML (N) and PPP, against him. The alliance of assorted parties that replaced PTI in power in 2022 even included Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement, which has been accused of being funded by foreign intelligence agencies to orchestrate unrest in Pakistan’s northwest.
Most political parties in Pakistan are defined largely by political expediency. That is why it was easier for these parties to coalesce despite identifying themselves as conservatives, secularists, centrists, leftists, etc. Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the leader of conservative Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F), best exemplifies this expediency. It has helped him remain part of the power structure for over two decades despite a limited base.
The ascension of Imran Khan pushed him into the political wilderness in 2018. Rehman earned the ‘Maulana Diesel’ sobriquet in the 1990s when he cut a diesel franchise deal with Benazir Bhutto in return for support after an ugly campaign to prevent her from becoming the Prime Minister. He stoked anti-American sentiments but in private lobbied US envoy Anne Patterson for American support for his prime ministerial ambitions. At a dinner Rehman hosted for Patterson in November 2007, an aide of his told the envoy that all ‘important parties in Pakistan had to get the [American] approval.’
In a leaked 2007 cable, Patterson wrote Rehman is known for ‘wily political skills.’ She added she was told Rehman’s ‘still significant numbers of votes are up for sale.’ Patterson wrote Rehman enjoys ‘being courted by both [military ruler Pervez] Musharraf and [Benazir] Bhutto and sees himself increasingly in the lucrative position of being kingmaker’, if not the Prime Minister.
Patterson noted Rehman wanted to be ‘more engaged with the US’ and to lobby Congress and American think tanks. She wrote Rehman appeared worried about whether the US would deal with him if he became the Prime Minister. He cautioned Patterson ‘not to put all the eggs’ in Bhutto’s basket. Months later, Rehman got his brother a lucrative ministry in the PPP government that was formed in 2008.
The track record of his opponents and resonance for Khan’s allegations of an American plot to oust him has kept him in contention for a comeback despite his governance failures and mismanagement of the economy. By ganging up to keep the PTI out of power again, the discredited politicians will only end up making Imran Khan more popular to their detriment.
Sameer Arshad Khatlani is a journalist and the author of the Penguin Random House book The Other Side of the Divide
