Pakistan’s parliamentary elections ended in a surprise upset, one that could make the transition to the next government a chaotic affair and that could leave the winning politicians without real governing power.
Backed by Pakistan’s powerful and influential military establishment, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was expected to win last Thursday’s vote handily, restoring controversial former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to his old post. However, voters handed a stunning victory to politicians allied with jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.
But that doesn’t mean Khan will be the next prime minister, or even that his party will lead the next government.
PTI was essentially prohibited from running candidates after the Supreme Court ruled they could not use their electoral symbol on ballots; many PTI politicians instead ran as independents. And independent candidates, most of them associated with PTI, took 92 seats in Pakistan’s parliament — more than each of the other major parties. That would normally give a party the upper hand in forming a government and in choosing a prime minister. But since the independents aren’t part of a party, PML-N and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), both of which are headed by members of dynastic political families, are in talks to form a coalition to lead the next government.
Practically, that might not result in massive changes to daily life. None of the major parties have very cogent or convincing plans to deal with Pakistan’s economic and security woes.
“In terms of the parties’ plans to tackle Pakistan’s economic and security problems, there is not much difference,” Madiha Afzal, a fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, told Vox by email. “The thing is, we have seen all these parties (and candidates) holding power before, and they did not fundamentally change the trajectory of the country, and especially not its economy.”
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