Battling the Ballot: Military & Mullah versus the Political Class in Pakistan

Abstract

The post-Cold War had appeared to Frances Fukayama as an age for ascendency of liberal democracy. Indeed, one could observe a change of mood around the world marked by lesser tolerance for military authoritarianism which is why military regimes were seen on a decline. In Pakistan, known for a politically powerful military, it took the generals a bit more than a decade after the end of the Cold War to realize that direct intervention was not welcomed. October 1999 was the last that a general took charge of the state. General Pervez Musharraf’s rule ended in 2008 dovetailing into return of democracy the same year. The change was far more significant—Pakistan’s electoral democracy got anchored as governments were removed through elections rather than use of non-Parliamentary methods. This shift cannot be termed as a transformation but a variation since non-Parliamentary institutional methods were used to not allow prime ministers from completing their terms. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani was removed from office by the higher judiciary in June 2012 followed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in July 2017, and later Prime Minister Imran Khan in March 2022.

The army, which in 1997 lost its power to sack governments through constitutional means in the form of article 58(2)(b) of the 1973 Constitution that was revoked by the then civilian government, used the higher judiciary to keep governments unstable. It was not that after 2008 the army had learned a lesson and was willing to surrender power but that it found a new way to maximize control of state power and resources without undertaking direct intervention. The military shifted from control of government to managing governance. Stability in electoral democracy is a new benchmark. The status-quo will remain and political players will not gain more ground until and unless they build institutional capacity. So, while Fukayama could imagine that all players in Pakistan have accepted liberal democracy as a norm, such acceptance is primarily superficial. The military remains dominant in power politics and civilian forces still subservient. Pakistan, in fact, offers a model of hybrid military rule in which political governments provide cover to military’s de facto control of the state.