Why would the establishment rig the electoral process for a person, from whom it perceives a threat in the first place? Apart from political engineering of some sort, or rigging of the electoral process, there is no way that former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N could secure an electoral victory, or to put it more precisely, enough seats in the national assembly to form a comfortable majority in the upcoming January 2024 parliamentary elections.
Imran Khan is persistently scoring a higher than 60 percent rating in public opinion polls. His continuous absence from the political scene has so far failed to dampen his popularity. Nawaz Sharif is still a potent and popular political force in central Punjab, a region where a decisive electoral battle for parliamentary majority takes place. But he is no longer a darling of the Punjabi middle class, a social class which has persistently voted for him between 1993 and 2013. In the sixteen months of coalition rule led by PML-N, this social class was pulverized with economic hardships. This is a social class which is the prime beneficiary of state sponsored economic and financial subsidy programs. The comfortable middle-class lifestyle, which this social class has enjoyed since Zia’s martial law, the Punjabi middle class has thus far attributed to the patronage-based politics of Nawaz Sharif. This middle class is no longer solidly supporting Nawaz Sharif. Although Nawaz and his party are making a last-ditch attempt to re-attract its social base by slogans such as, “Nawaz Sharif will restore economic affluence in the country.” PML-N’s narrative squarely blames Imran Khan and his time in power for the economic hardship people have been facing.
Imran Khan’s anti-elite rhetoric was hammered into the minds of the downtrodden and Punjabi middle classes at a time when the removal of state sponsored subsidies pushed these social classes out of their slumbered day dreaming.
Imran Khan is the new darling of the Punjabi middle classes—only an academic study will be able to discern clearly how Imran Khan’s social media campaign overwhelmed public opinion in the urban centers of Pakistan, where the Pakistani middle class is located. The majority of these urban centers are located in Central Punjab.
We can infer from circumstances that a mix of anti-Americanism, dramatic inflation, price hikes and general anti-elite rhetoric of Imran Khan combined has weaned the Punjabi middle classes away from their previous darling, Nawaz Sharif. Nawaz Sharif and his family are filthy rich, and they publicly display their ostentatious wealth. This is, in fact, part of their electoral strategy to attract the vote of the downtrodden of the society and the middle classes, which seemed to have been enamored by the ebullient lifestyle of Sharif and his cronies.
Sharif and his equally filthy rich cronies have acted as a subject of the fantasies of the downtrodden classes in Pakistani society - what they didn’t have, they could vicariously fantasize their leaders to be enjoying in the here and present. Imran Khan’s anti-elite rhetoric was hammered into the minds of the downtrodden and Punjabi middle classes at a time when the removal of state sponsored subsidies pushed these social classes out of their slumbered day dreaming. In such a situation, the rise of new middle classes, which are the product of Musharraf-era economic reforms and the resultant introduction of the IT and telecom sectors in Pakistan’s economy, provided Imran Khan with smart and politically active activists and socially vocal supporters.
The question is why would the military intervene in the political arena and bring Nawaz Sharif back to power? My understanding is that Nawaz Sharif on his own could not secure a parliamentary majority in the upcoming parliamentary elections. The military’s political weight could get him into the Prime Minister house. But why would the military intervene for a person which it perceives to be a threat to its continued dominance of the state’s power structures? Nawaz Sharif recited a verse from Ghalib, through which he hinted that he was committed to generating a storm if he is pushed to the wall again. Enough of a warning to the military leadership. They might not be well versed in the intricacies of Urdu poetry, but this verse was simple enough, and at the very least, the military establishment is rather well versed in power politics.
Let’s now answer the question: why would the military support Nawaz Sharif to become prime minister for the fourth time? Primarily because Nawaz Sharif is still a potent political force in Pakistani society. And the military seems to be working on their time-tested formula of pitting one political force against another—in the present context, this would mean pitting Nawaz Sharif against the popularity of Imran Khan.
Kicking out one popular political leader and bringing in another will never bring stability to our society. Any political system that will take birth after the political engineering of keeping Imran Khan out of electoral politics will face serious legitimacy questions.
The military will undoubtedly be taking a risk in this game. Nawaz Sharif, once in power, will surely try to act as an autonomous political actor. In his Minaar-e-Pakistan speech, he did not mention normalization with India, but broadly hinted at normalization with Pakistan’s neighbors. The military rather is familiar with Nawaz Sharif's old obsession with the idea of initiating a peace process with India. Autonomous political actors or those who have a pretension of autonomy don’t take long to start a brawl with the military establishment. Pakistan’s post-Musharraf political history is rife with examples of this sort. So someone who can kick out Imran Khan and bring in Nawaz Sharif could also kick out Nawaz Sharif and bring Imran Khan back again. Our criminal justice system has already been turned into a series of kangaroo courts.
Kicking out one popular political leader and bringing in another will never bring stability to our society. Any political system that will take birth after the political engineering of keeping Imran Khan out of electoral politics will face serious legitimacy questions. Pushing Imran Khan out of politics means disenfranchising, rather alienating, a large segment of Pakistani society. Perhaps a large segment of Pakistani society is likely to not turn up for voting on polling day in the January 2024 parliamentary elections, thus dramatically reducing voter turnout. This will be another question mark on the legitimacy of the January parliamentary elections.
It would be a folly of highest order to decide Imran Khan’s future on the basis of legal and jurisprudential principles. Imran Khan’s fate should be decided on the basis of political principles. Keeping Nawaz Sharif out of the electoral process was a mistake, and we paid heavily for that mistake when the political system failed to stabilize in the wake of the 2018 parliamentary elections. Nawaz Sharif possesses political wisdom in ample supply. He has seen many ups and downs through our nation’s political history. Political popularity could never be erased by the sheer de jure power of judicial verdicts. People’s verdicts endure far longer than judicial verdicts. This is a lesson from our history. Those repeating their mistakes should realize as quickly as possible that they are standing on the wrong side of history.