The conspicuous dormant electoral activity, just a few weeks ahead of elections, understandably raises several concerns about the whole election process. The surreptitious resolution in the Senate seeking postponement of elections only reinforced the otherwise unrelenting political gossip regarding a possible delay in elections in drawing rooms. These concerns are also resonating among general people because political parties seem totally divorced from public engagement and indifferent to the massive security and economic challenges they might face soon after the elections. Any delay in elections will push the country into crippling political unrest and a strangulating economic crisis. This is a horrible option; therefore, the Senate’s resolution sounds meaningless and impracticable. It will perhaps be generally admitted that any further political or economic slide might affect the national security and integrity of the country.
In this dormant political environment, the Supreme Court is calmly carrying out unprecedented jurisprudence despite a few loud and noisy developments. Two senior judges of the Supreme Court, Justice Mazahir Ali Naqvi and Justice Ijazul Ahsan, have resigned. In the divided top court, the resignations of the two judges who seemed to belong to a particular group within the apex court cannot be ignored. The two judges had been involved in the most controversial constitutional cases in the past few years. Their observations in cases starting from the Panama Papers case raised many eyebrows even in the legal community. Almost all their observations and decisions seemed to be tilted toward the PTI. The resignations of the two top court judges have provided the weakened PML-N a desperately needed narrative, which it would likely use during its election campaign in the run-up to the February elections.
As it all was not enough, the Supreme Court on 13 January upheld the decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan to withdraw the election symbol of “bat” from the PTI. Despite all the flaws in the intra-party elections that PTI lawyers also accepted before the court, it would have raised the credibility of elections if the party had been granted its election symbol. The decision of the Supreme Court has put the PTI in a very awkward situation a few weeks ahead of elections. It is high time for the PTI to do some introspection and see how its poorly prepared legal team could not contest the case in the top court. It should also investigate why it failed to hold acceptable, fair party elections within the party. Unfortunately, political parties in Pakistan prefer to make institutions controversial instead of looking inward and introducing democracy within the parties.
It would have been much better if the political parties had reached a consensus on a minimum political agenda before going into elections. The Charter of Democracy, signed between former Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, should have been a reference point for all political parties. Meanwhile, the political parties have been involved in pushing their rivals out of the political race for the past over a decade. They are devoid of any focus on a strategy to deal with the country’s pressing economic challenges.
Though the IMF board approved the $700 million second tranche of the standby arrangement for Pakistan on 11 January, the new government would have to engage the IMF soon after the elections to keep the country solvent. Any new arrangement with the IMF would, however, involve new conditionalities. All political parties are reluctant to share with the people the likely impact such conditionalities would have on people’s day-to-day lives. As part of general pre-poll canvassing, almost all political parties have been raising hollow political slogans and resorting to moralistic platitudes as if revenue generation and debt repayment are not on their agenda.
The political parties should consider the PDM’s experience of forming the government in April 2022. It clearly showed that the formation of a government without proper homework was bound to meet a disaster. The PML-N should not overlook the fact that it was the ultimate loser in terms of its political capital. The decision to stage a no-trust move against former Prime Minister Imran Khan proved a huge blunder because the PML-N and other parties ignored the glaring economic challenges. They all continued to criticize the poor economic performance of the previous PTI government but failed to formulate a strategy to navigate the complex economic scenario.
The outcome was not unexpected. The inflation that rose to 40 percent during Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s government is persisting. There has been improvement in twin deficits, but the foreign debt obligations continue to haunt the country.
The election environment has overshadowed economic issues for the time being, but this will only remain for a short period of time. These issues will crop up soon after the 2024 elections. The lackluster political participation ahead of elections might result from apprehensions about the economic future. The three major political parties need to be more relaxed in their internal affairs to notice the people’s mood. Compared to the 2018 elections, the environment is far more suitable for the PML-N as it no longer faces hostilities from the judiciary and the establishment. However, it faces challenges of intra-party divisions and reduced popularity among the people. These two factors have delayed the PML-N’s election campaign a great deal.
Though with altogether different strategies, the PPP and PTI are already in the field. PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is among the people in all four provinces and is trying to claim the political space created by the laid-back approach of the PML-N. The PML-N relies solely on its traditional support base, electables, and alliances in different constituencies.
The PTI is using social media for its election campaign effectively. It is also trying to cope with the latest setback of contesting elections without a party symbol and struggling to ensure the loyalty of its independent candidates after elections. The major political parties should not, however, make these difficulties and challenges an excuse to delay their strategies to deal with the persistent economic challenges.
