Feb 1, 2025

Between Tutelary Democracy and Populism: 2022-2023 Pakistani Political Crisis and 2024 General Election

Written By: Dogan Gunes

The portrait of Imran Khan, carried by the supporters of the PTI. [Shahzaib Akber/EPA]

Background

Pakistan, along with Turkey (until the 2010s) and Thailand, is often viewed as one of the textbook cases for studying civil-military relations and tutelary democracy. This is mainly due to the Pakistani army’s highly autonomous and powerful position in Pakistani politics.[i] After the declaration of the Islamic Republic in 1956, Pakistan spent a total of 34 years under military rule (the last one being between 1999 and 2008). However, each and every time, the restoration of competitive party politics did not bring democratic consolidation, and a key aspect of it, a military under civilian control. The military remained as the key power holder in the country, often signaling support for certain political parties, and helping them to get elected. Tutelary democracy of Pakistan encountered a major blow in 2018, when the Islamic populist PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf), led by former cricket star Imran Khan, won the elections with 32% of the votes. However, unlike other recent cases of populism, Khan could not attempt any form of executive aggrandizement. He lacked a majority in the parliament, faced an ‘’activist’’ judiciary, and could not co-opt the military. He was eventually ousted from office by a vote of no confidence in April 2022, and replaced by an ‘’anti-Khan’’ coalition government mainly led by conservative PML (Pakistan Muslim League) and center-left PPP (Pakistan People’s Party). After losing power, Khan was arrested and convicted of corruption charges in 2023 and 2024. At the time of writing this article, he has been in jail for one and a half years.

2024 General Election

Under these conditions, on February 8, 2024, Pakistanis headed to polls to elect their MPs for the next five years. The results were both striking and dramatic for the PTI. Although the Supreme Court did not allow the PTI to run in the elections and prohibited their cricket bat symbol, all of their MP candidates ran independently and maintained an 8-point margin against the PML. ‘’Independent’’ PTI candidates got 31% of the nationwide vote, while the PML only got 23%. PML’s main coalition partner, the PPP, only received 14% of the votes and 68 MPs. Nevertheless, because of Pakistan’s first-past-the-post electoral system, the PML managed to win the plurality of the seats (98 MPs out of 336). With the support of smaller parties, the PML and PPP agreed to continue their coalition government, leaving the PTI behind. Since the beginning of the political crisis in 2022, the PTI constantly criticized the establishment (the military, the judiciary, and establishment parties like the PML and PPP), and argued that the election was neither free nor fair. Additionally, the electoral integrity was heavily questioned by the PTI. Many international observers also raised these concerns.

Analysis

How can we situate the Pakistani case in democratization/autocratization literature? How can populist leaders weaken the military tutelage in hybrid regimes? Why did Imran Khan’s populist backlash fail even in the 2024 general elections? Pakistan is a great case for studying the relationship between civil-military relations and populism. Hakkı Taş’ recent article, which focuses on this relationship, shows that even in countries with institutionalized and autonomous militaries (such as Turkey and Venezuela), populist leaders manage to take control of the military over time, and by politicizing it, they start to use the military for their own benefit.[ii] Therefore, a civilianized military does not necessarily ensure democratization. However, it should be remembered that in both of these examples, the populist party/leader has been in power for more than twenty years. For instance, for Turkey’s Erdoğan, it took almost ten years to end the military tutelage. During this process, he also faced serious challenges from the establishment, including a political ban in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a military memorandum in 2007, and a closure trial against his party in 2008. He was able to overcome each and every one of these challenges with a growing economy which tied many societal groups to him, and the EU reforms, which gave him legitimacy (both domestically and internationally). Imran Khan did not have any of these. In fact, he had the opposite. Imran Khan was heavily criticized for his poor management of the economy and the COVID-19 pandemic, and diverged from traditional Pakistani foreign policy, which is mostly pro-US, by having closer relations with China and Russia. Under these circumstances, the (military) establishment remained intact. Therefore, we cannot expect that anti-democratic activities by tutelary powers are doomed to fail just because of the fact that competitive elections exist. In order to weaken the establishment by the ballot box, the (populist) challenger needs favorable conditions.

What can we say about ‘’coup-proofing’’ in the Pakistani context? It was highly likely that even if Imran Khan had ‘’favorable’’ conditions for breaking the dominance of the military, this task would be more challenging for him, compared to Erdoğan or Chavez. Even though the Turkish military had significant veto powers (especially after the 1960s), they were never in a position to determine the winners of multi-party elections. In fact, in each of the three Turkish democratic transitions after military administrations, the party/candidate favored by the military lost the first elections after the transition (The CHP in 1961, Faruk Gürler in 1973, and the MDP in 1983). This was not the case in Pakistan. By even 2024, 40% of the Pakistani population is still illiterate. The voting behavior is highly influenced by landed elites and kinship all around the country.[iii] Turkey was a more economically developed case with a more educated electorate, and the influence of the landed elites and kinship was limited to the Eastern provinces of the country. For this reason, the political parties were able to influence the citizens more. However, with the 2024 general election, the Pakistani case is starting to show signs of change. The Pakistani middle class and urbanization are rising, and the PTI is starting to become the party of the city dwellers. A Gallup poll about the Pakistani electorate shows that the PTI is the most popular party among those who hold a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree, while they are also the least popular party among illiterate voters.[iv] This finding would be very surprising in other contexts, where the populists are generally popular with least educated voters, and very unpopular with the most educated voters. However, in the Pakistani context, it seems that the democratizing aspect of populism is more central and promising. While many would argue that Pakistan has a long way to go for the end of military tutelage and prospects for democratization, the continuation of change in Pakistani society may turn the fortune of the PTI.

 

Endnotes

[i] Slater, D., Way, L. A., Lachapelle, J., & Casey, A. E. (2023). The Origins of Military Supremacy in Dictatorships. Journal of Democracy, 34(3), 5-20.

[ii] Taş, H. (2024). Populism and civil–military relations. Democratization, 31(1), 70-89.

[iii] Malik, A & Tudor, M. (2024). Pakistan’s Coming Crisis. Journal of Democracy, 35(3), 69-83.

[iv] Ibid.

Sign Up For Updates

Get the latest updates, research, teaching opportunities, and event information from the Democratic Erosion Consortium by signing up for our listserv.

Popular Tags

Popular Categories

0 Comments

Submit a Comment