[The most likely beneficiary of the military’s manipulation is the party led by the former cricket star Imran Khan, who has called the Taliban’s war against the United States military in Afghanistan justified, and is seen as the military’s favored candidate — a notion he denies. Mr. Khan has positioned himself as a fighter against corruption, taking aim at the dynastic politics and nepotism of parties like the PML-N while maintaining a good relationship with the military, which he credits with protecting the country.]
By
Maria Abi-Habib and Salman Masood
 |
|
Banners
and flags of different political parties ahead of elections, in Karachi,
Pakistan.
Credit Shakil Adil/Associated Press
|
LAHORE,
Pakistan — The phone calls
started last month, said Rana Iqbal Siraj: intimidating, anonymous demands that
he defect from the party that governed Pakistan for the past five years and
tried to curb the power of the military. Soon, he was summoned by state
security officials who delivered the same message.
Mr. Siraj, a candidate for the legislature in
Punjab Province, stayed with his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, which
was built decades ago around former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Then in June,
roughly a month before Election Day, security officials raided his business at
the behest of the military, Mr. Siraj said in an interview.
“They are trying to ruin me financially by
raiding my warehouse and beating my staff,” he said, adding that he was
considering moving his family abroad for their safety. “What am I at fault for?
Just because I’m running on the PML-N ticket?”
Mr. Siraj and fellow party members said the
aim of the raid was to weaken the former governing party’s chances by forcing
its candidates to defect ahead of national elections on Wednesday that are
shaping up to be a referendum on the military and its interference in
Pakistan’s democracy.
That military campaign has been likened by
some candidates to a soft coup, and has included sidelining candidates who are
out of the military’s favor, censoring major news outlets and persecuting
peaceful political movements.
The most likely beneficiary of the military’s
manipulation is the party led by the former cricket star Imran Khan, who has
called the Taliban’s war against the United States military in Afghanistan justified,
and is seen as the military’s favored candidate — a notion he denies. Mr. Khan
has positioned himself as a fighter against corruption, taking aim at the
dynastic politics and nepotism of parties like the PML-N while maintaining a
good relationship with the military, which he credits with protecting the
country.
The military has ruled Pakistan, a
nuclear-armed country, through various coups for nearly half the country’s
history since it gained independence in 1947. Even during civilian rule, the country’s
generals have wielded enormous power, setting the agenda for the country’s
foreign and security policies and tolerance of extremist groups — including the
Afghan Taliban in its fight against the United States-backed government in
Afghanistan next door.
As prime minister, Mr. Sharif ran afoul of
the military early on by trying to assert control over foreign and defense
policy, which is seen as the army’s domain. He also tried to improve ties with
India, Pakistan’s archrival, and opposed the military’s embrace of terrorist
groups, members of his party say.
In Wednesday’s election, voters will choose
provincial legislatures and the country’s Parliament, which will appoint the
next prime minister. Officially, it will be only the second democratic transition
between civilian governments in the Pakistan’s history, after the last election
in 2013.
The PML-N accuses the army of pressuring the
country’s courts to disqualify its top candidates, including Mr. Sharif, who
was sentenced to prison this month. At the same time, some candidates who are
on the government’s terrorism watch list have been cleared to run.
The main Pakistani Army spokesman, Maj. Gen.
Asif Ghafoor, denied at a news conference this month that Mr. Siraj was
targeted because he belonged to the PML-N, saying that he had been the subject
of a government investigation for a year and a half. General Ghafoor would not
specify the nature of the investigation, and he denied that intelligence
agencies had been involved in the raid on Mr. Siraj’s warehouse.
Other high-profile PML-N candidates have
defected to Mr. Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or P.T.I.
Mr. Khan said that while he has a productive
relationship with the military, he is not receiving any help from it.
Candidates are joining his centrist party because they are fed up with
traditional parties that have failed to deliver, he said.
“When you have poor-quality leadership
without the moral standing, you have a void and someone will always fill it,”
Mr. Khan said in an interview at his home in Islamabad, referring to the
military’s track record of coups and political interference.
The P.T.I. is popular with voters under 35
who are hungry for change and make up 43 percent of the electorate.
But the military’s influence over Pakistan’s
courts and its muzzling of the news media have cast a shadow over Mr. Khan’s
party and its rallying cries for change and transparency.
Mr. Sharif and his daughter and political
heir Maryam returned to Pakistan this month to face arrest after being
convicted of corruption and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. He had already
been forced to resign last year by Pakistan’s Supreme Court in a case involving
undisclosed luxury properties the Sharif family owns in London.
The Sharifs say those rulings were
politicized, with the courts pressed by the military to bar them from politics.
On Saturday, a judge of the Islamabad High
Court accused the military’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI,
of meddling in the judiciary and forcing the justices to rule against Mr.
Sharif and his relatives.
The speech by Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui
to lawyers in Rawalpindi was the latest public indictment of the military’s
interference in politics. The parts of the speech that were critical of the ISI
were not aired by local television news networks but short video clips went
viral on social media.
The judge accused the ISI of influencing and
pressuring the court that convicted and sentenced Mr. Sharif and his relatives.
On July 17, the Islamabad High Court deferred the hearings of the appeals by
Mr. Sharif against the court verdict until after elections.
“In this election, what’s at stake is the
fate of Pakistan,” said Hina Rabbani, a former foreign minister who is running
with the Pakistan Peoples Party, a rival of the PML-N. “I may hate Nawaz Sharif
for his political choices, but I believe the system needs to self-correct, and
we can no longer allow external forces to correct it. The only thing that can
correct the system is elections.”
The 2013 election was important because it
was the first time power had been transferred from one civilian government to
another, Ms. Rabbani said. “But for the next 10 years, we’ll be holding our
breath with every election.”
Mr. Khan, who made Mr. Sharif’s removal from
office almost a personal mission, sees the situation differently.
“To say the army castrated Nawaz Sharif —
Nawaz Sharif was castrated by his own corruption,” he said. “The unlevel
playing field you see is that they have minted this country,” he said,
referring to the endemic corruption among Pakistan’s top political parties.
Although Mr. Khan has a good chance of
becoming prime minister, the military is likely to insist on curbing the next
government’s ability to shape defense and foreign policy, risking Pakistan’s
further international isolation.
“The military finds itself in a tight
corner,” said Raza Rumi, the editor of The Daily Times, an influential
newspaper based in Lahore. “They want a hung Parliament that doesn’t focus on
cutting the military’s budget or curtailing its foreign policy. Instead, they
want a government that focuses on cleaning the streets and planting trees.”
Whichever party forms the government will
inherit a raft of problems: domestic terrorism; terrible relationships with
neighboring India and Afghanistan; deteriorating ties with the United States,
once a major ally; and a sputtering economy.
Last month, Pakistan was returned to a “gray list” by the Financial Action Task
Force — a global body that fights terrorism financing — for not doing enough to
counter Islamic extremists operating from its territory. The listing could
affect the country’s ability to raise funds internationally. At the beginning
of this year, the Trump administration cut more than $1 billion in annual
security aid over Pakistan’s support for terrorist groups. (The Pakistani
military denies supporting terrorists.)
The military believes it can weather the
storm by turning to China, which is spending some $65 billion on infrastructure
and other projects in Pakistan, as well as doling out billions in loans.
“The question the whole nation is asking is
what does the army want and why this level of interference?” said Ahmed
Rasheed, a foreign-policy analyst and author.
Like others interviewed, Mr. Rasheed said he
believed the military wanted a weak government, with the P.T.I. at the helm of
an unwieldy alliance in Parliament.
While the PML-N, which held a supermajority
in the last Parliament, may win the most votes, it will struggle to form a
government if the military pressures potential coalition partners. Analysts say
Mr. Khan’s party is likely to be able to form the next government by cobbling
together a coalition with smaller parties and independents.
But the military risks a severe backlash, Mr.
Rasheed said, in part because social media has increased scrutiny of an
institution once seen as sacrosanct.
“For the first time, not just the elite, but
the public is now aware of the army’s major role,” Mr. Rasheed said. “It’s now
talked about at the village level.”
When Gul Bukhari, a journalist and vocal
critic of the military, was abducted in an army-controlled area of Lahore last
month by unknown assailants, including men in military uniform, the news spread
quickly online. Pakistanis took to social media, including Twitter, to demand
that Ms. Bukhari be freed, and within hours she was returned home.
Ms. Bukhari said the public outcry had played
a large role in her quick release.
“It was a demonstration of the immense power
of social media in our times,” she said in an interview.
The traditional news media have also stood up
to the military, as happened this spring when the newspaper Dawn and the TV
channel Geo News complained that their distribution was being disrupted in
parts of the country that the military administers.
Many candidates are nervous about the
military’s unusual decision to deploy some 371,000 soldiers to monitor the
election, including inside polling stations. But Khurram Dastgir Khan, a PML-N
candidate who was defense minister in the last government, said social media
had made the military and its allies more careful about overt interference.
“Things come out — they can’t be kept hidden
anymore,” he said. “It’s unfeasible to use the draconian measures of two
decades ago. Society has moved forward and technology has moved forward.”
