The morning after

For the second time, it seems, the powers-that-be have not been able to handle ‘Project Imran’. And this will have consequences in Pakistan’s vacillating experience with democracy and the principles of civilian supremacy.

The original sin, of course, was to ‘select’ Imran Khan as the saviour of the nation and then to groom and launch him in 2018. But that may have been easier than the present task, so they say, of dismantling a myth that was created in the process.

Even conceding that the assumptions I am making are not true, there appears to be no doubt that Imran Khan has become a central point of reference in the holding of national elections on Thursday and the trickling down of their results.

I have to confess that this opinion that the establishment has not succeeded in achieving its objectives is entirely speculative. It can be argued that the elections have yielded positive results, and the overall situation is not unsatisfactory. Eventually, the outcomes would be adequately handled.

For the time being, Pakistan is caught in the whirling vortex of what may be allegorically described as the morning after, though the night in this case extended to more than 24 hours. By and large, the hangover of the heady indulgence, in a political context, of the night before will last for some time.

Normally, elections in a working democracy are a matter of routine, their purpose being to elect a new government for a specific tenure. The idea is to protect and continue with a constitutional process in accordance with the will of the people.

But Pakistan, sadly, has not been a normal democracy and its encounters with elections have generally been flawed and contentious. Some elections became landmarks in our history, activating monumental developments or a radical shift in policy and the quality of governance.

Do the February 8, 2024, elections belong in that category? They surely do, because of the surprises that they have produced. Essentially, they represent a popular wave in favour of Imran Khan, who is now in prison and was very recently convicted in three of the many cases registered against him. There is a great sense of drama in how his party has fared in the face of persistent suppression. The innovative manner in which the party activists, with their expertise in the uses of social media, built a campaign for the ‘independents’ is a measure of how politics in Pakistan has changed.

We also have confirmation in the outcome of Thursday’s elections of the passions that Imran Khan’s charisma has aroused in his supporters. This is a kind of cult following that cannot be fully explained in a rational context. There is no point in arguing with his followers about their leader’s ideology or political philosophy. It does not seem to matter that Imran’s politics has polarized Pakistani society and has promoted social intolerance and moral indecency.

A lot of literature exists on the rise of a charismatic leader in a time of crisis in a country of low political culture. Imran Khan would be a good case study. As an aside, I may recall that comedian Trevor Noah had called Imran Khan the Pakistani Trump when the PTI leader became prime minister in 2018. They are twins, he had said, underlining some uncanny similarities between them. These similarities have remained valid in 2024.

Apart from the fact that this week’s elections have authenticated Imran Khan’s presence in the present state of affairs, we should be very concerned about the messages that the elections have delivered. Those of us who are closely observing the scene were overwhelmed by the torrents of comments made on news channels during their nonstop coverage of the aftermath of the elections. Because of an inexplicable delay in some results, the show was going on and on.

These delays have also raised questions about the credibility of the elections. There are bound to be charges of rigging and a number of candidates will seek judicial intervention against decisions made by the Election Commission of Pakistan. However, the polling itself was quite orderly and there is a sense of relief that no major disruptions in the process were reported.

Incidentally, almost all analysts were predicting an easy win for Nawaz Sharif, as if the establishment had already planned this outcome. It would be interesting to read the opinion pieces published until Thursday morning. It seemed certain that the PML-N would be gifted with a good majority to enable the execution of the already-designed plan for economic revival and political stability.

Just the opposite has happened. It is very much a hung parliament and there are likely to be many hurdles in the formation of a viable coalition government. Where will the PTI ‘independents’ belong in any future arrangement, considering that they constitute the largest ‘party’? The stage seems set for a prolonged period of instability and sleazy political machinations.

This does not bode well for Pakistan’s immediate future. This also means that the plans that the establishment had supposedly drafted to first attend to economic development will now be shelved because economic stability demands political stability. We cannot, thus, be certain about the longevity of any arrangement that the political parties are able to hammer out in the coming days.

In that sense, these elections have exposed some basic truths about Pakistan. Our people are obviously not a good judge of the performance and the abilities of the leaders and representatives they choose. For instance, the PTI has taken Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in a landslide. But what was its performance in the province during the ten years of its rule?

Because of the hectic political maneuvering that has begun for the formation of the next, elected government, there is little time to reflect on the existing state of our society and evaluate our capacity to understand and protect democratic values and practices. There is a lot to worry about in the morning after.

The writer is a senior journalist. He can be reached at: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com