“It’s no secret that Pakistan’s military kingmakers have thrown their support behind Sharif, which ultimately means he’s a shoo-in to return to power. But Khan’s enduring popularity means more heavy-handed tactics will be required. Over recent months, thousands of PTI workers have been arrested, dozens of party leaders resigned following lengthy interrogations, Khan’s name was banned from mainstream media, and constituency boundary lines were redrawn to allegedly benefit his opponents.” — The Time magazine

According to a wide range of analysts, Pakistan’s parliamentary elections scheduled for 8th February 2024, will be the most rigged election in the country’s history. The reason for this is the state authorities’ steely determination to thwart the anticipated victory of former PM Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, leading by a wide margin in several major opinion polls commanding over 60% support.

Current measures instigated by the state authorities to dismantle the PTI in the run-up to the election are a culmination of the sweeping, unconstitutional, repressive measures taken over the past two years to subvert the democratic process. Key amongst these was the denial of constitutionally mandated stipulations to hold elections following the PTI’s resignations from provincial assemblies in Punjab and KP. The two provinces collectively comprise more than 60% of Pakistan’s population and as per the constitution, the elections were to be held by April 2023. Fearing the expected triumph of the PTI in both provinces and the corresponding defeat of the ruling PDM alliance headed then by PM Shehbaz Sharif, the regime doubled down on persecuting Khan’s activists and supporters. An early indication of the regime’s brutality occurred in May 2022, when it conducted a fierce crackdown against the PTI on the eve of a planned protest by Khan, raiding the homes of thousands of party workers and beating up activists. The most defining image was a cancer patient and former health minister Dr. Yasmin Rashid’s car getting smashed by violent Punjab policemen.

In October 2022, Pakistan’s most famous investigative journalist Arshad Sharif (who was forced to leave Pakistan due to threats by the military authorities for speaking in favour of Khan) was assassinated in Kenya. In November 2022, Imran Khan was shot at a political rally. The government has stalled investigations of both Arshad’s assassination and attempted assassination of Khan. Khan’s aides & supporters have been tortured or killed in state custody, and regime leaders, including the interior minister, have stated they want to torture or eliminate him.

Many of these events have been covered in detail in a dossier on human rights. The situation has not changed under the subsequent federal caretaker government headed by Anwaar Kakar and Punjab caretaker chief minister Mohsin Naqvi, under whom the state machinery has been used to silence PTI activists. The caretaker governments, whose job is primarily to neutrally arrange elections, have given partisan statements against Imran Khan and his party.

9th May protests as an excuse to dismantle PTI

On 9th May 2023, Imran Khan was violently abducted by paramilitary rangers who smashed their way into a scheduled hearing at the Islamabad High Court premises. The abduction was deemed illegal by the Supreme Court and decried internationally. It ignited a wave of public anger that led thousands to take to the streets. The authorities responded with strongarm tactics, killing several protesters, injuring hundreds, and detaining thousands, including activists, supporters, social media users, and prominent journalists. Women activists were especially targeted, being dragged and beaten on the streets, and many continue to languish in jails through the denial of due process. The total number of detainees is at least 10,000 workers (similar numbers are admitted even by state-backed channels), with the vast majority still awaiting justice in the absence of any incriminating evidence.

Above all, the regime instrumentalised the protests to embark upon the wholesale dismantling of the PTI. It announced plans to use the Pakistan Army Act and Official Secret Act to try civilians in military courts. Detained party members have been threatened, abducted or intimidated into leaving the PTI. Those who do leave are relieved of criminal charges.

Furthermore, the state has accused Imran Khan of instigating a mutiny, orchestrating, and conspiring to start a civil war and has termed it terrorism. The regime levied these charges even though Khan had been abducted when the protests took place. It has failed to marshal any credible evidence for the court (for example, phone recordings, PTI members’ meeting minutes etc.) that implicates Khan in orchestrating the protests. Under the garb of this false flag operation, the state has forced many party members to disown PTI and quit politics altogether.

The PTI has demanded a rigorous inquiry into the events of 9th May and submitted several pieces of video evidence indicating that it was a false flag operation to facilitate a crackdown on its party leaders, workers and supporters. In addition to the killings and mass arrests of 9th May, the regime routinely resorted to media and internet blackouts, direct threats to supreme court judges, and arrests or torture of journalists and social media users.

Politically Motivated Court Cases Against Imran Khan

The military regime and the pliant caretaker government have embroiled Imran Khan in over 200 absurd cases that range from terrorism to contempt of court. In a gross travesty of justice, Khan’s trials have been conducted inside the jail since August 2023 rather than in a public court. The authorities have prevented the public from seeing his face since he was imprisoned following a fraudulent trial in August 2023. Even if he receives bail, the authorities promptly file new cases to ensure that he remains in jail. Many judges operate under a climate of coercion and blackmail by the junta that is bent on submitting the legal process to its whims.

One of the most prominent cases against Khan is the “cipher case”. Invoking a colonial-era law that had fallen into legal disuse, the regime accused Khan of irresponsible use of the cipher (that is widely regarded as the trigger to his ouster from power). The cipher in question was sent in March 2022 by Pakistan’s ambassador to the USA, Asad Majeed Khan, detailing the threat by Assistant Secretary of State, Donald Lu to remove PM Imran Khan or face isolation. Although Lu’s statements were deemed “blatant interference” in Pakistan’s politics by two successive governments, the discussion on the same cipher has bizarrely been used to charge Imran Khan for irresponsibility. The cipher was made public several months later by the news outlet The Intercept, which identified the whistleblower as a military official. On 30th January, Imran Khan was handed 10 years in jail in the cipher case by a special court without allowing the defence counsel’s right to cross-examine witnesses.

Electoral Ban on PTI

On 13th January, democracy in Pakistan suffered a further blow after the Supreme Court deprived PTI of their electoral symbol – a cricket bat – just before the elections. A three-member bench – headed by Chief Justice (CJ) Qazi Faez Isa announced the verdict in a live streamed transmission of the court case. In a startling turnaround, the live stream terminated abruptly when the current Chairperson PTI, Gohar Ali Khan also appeared on live tv, and lamented how his house had just been ransacked and his family members roughed by the police.

The verdict revoking PTI’s symbol was severely criticised as a huge blow to fundamental rights by a large majority of observers. Barrister Asad Rahim Khan stated,

“Given the nature of its decisions and the now routine absurdity of its logic, this is probably the shortest time in which the Supreme Court has lost its credibility. An utterly ludicrous order.”

The revocation of the electoral symbol of PTI has huge ramifications and essentially renders the elections lopsided.  Firstly, in a country with high levels of illiteracy, the PTI cannot use the ‘cricket bat’ as its nationally recognizable electoral symbol nor can it use an alternative. Secondly, party members are unable to contest on the party platform with a unified electoral symbol which is a logistical and coordination nightmare. Thirdly, a case is being made that PTI loses access to over 20% of the seats that are reserved for women and religious minorities and are allocated to the political parties according to their proportional representation. Fourthly, even if PTI contestants win sufficient seats, they are not bound to the party and are therefore highly vulnerable to threats and coercion of the junta to form governments on diktat. Faisal Siddiqi, a respected lawyer explained that the upcoming elections are a sham:

“Constitutionally speaking, and in terms of binding judicial precedents in Pakistan, there can be no democracy without party-based elections, there can be no elections without political parties, and there can be no political party participation in elections without election symbols.

In the aftermath of the verdict, Chief Justice Faez Isa has come under heavy criticism by journalists across the spectrum not just for this decision but also for legitimising military courts during his tenure.

Obstructing PTI’s election bid

The action to disenfranchise a majority of the country via removing PTI from the electoral roll comes in the wake of massive pre-poll rigging in the form of abductions, repeated arrests, torture, enforced disappearances, coerced party exits, ban on assembly, obstruction of candidacy registration, and rejection of first choice candidates.

In dozens of cases, elections contestants and their approvers were either prevented from submitting the papers or rejected. One prominent episode is the sexual assault on a prominent candidate’s wife by state authorities while he was not at home. Another incident is that of journalist Imran Riaz Khan who was abducted and tortured by the military for several months. Key figures in the law enforcement apparatus have been named as overseeing the repression, notably, the Punjab Inspector General of police Usman Anwar.

Sarwar Bari, one of the country’s foremost elections experts and monitors, called it a heavily unfairelection, and Munizae Jahangir, the co-chairperson of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan concluded that the elections are extremely unfair:

“Foremost is the blatant manipulation of the electoral landscape in which one political party, among others, has been singled out for systematic dismemberment”.

Similarly, journalist, Zahid Hussain, writes:

“It appears that another process of selection, with the most brazen pre-poll manipulation, is underway. That makes the legitimacy of the democratic transition extremely doubtful. What is happening now has perhaps not been witnessed even under military rule.”

Currently, much of the first-tier leadership of PTI has been disallowed from contesting elections. These include a majority of cabinet members of the 2018-2022 PTI government.

Efforts to erase PTI from the election campaign

The relentless crackdown has been implemented to erase PTI from the election campaign ahead of the vote.  There are guidelines to not show Imran Khan’s face or mention his name in the media. In many areas, especially in Punjab, the state authorities remove PTI banners within 24 hours while PMLN party candidate banners remain installed at the same location.  In one of the most brazen acts, PTI’s main office in Lahore was burnt by ‘unknown people’.  In the last two days of January 2024, four PTI activist have been killed in a bombing and one has been killed in a shooting.

Due to the physical attacks, PTI resorted to online party conventions but even these were targeted via internet blackouts or slowdown. In December 2023 and January 2024, there were three major episodes of internet blackouts or slowdown  and all of them coincided with an online jalsa or fund raising event of PTI.

Since the party contestants were not allowed to contest on the party symbol of a bat or some alternative, the party has struggled to disseminate information on hundreds of symbols. The information on symbols was published on the party website, party app as well as an alternative website. However, the government blocked all these websites and apps.  The key people who are responsible for undermining the internet and blocking websites include Dr Umar Saif (caretaker federal minister of IT) and Major General (R) Hafeez Ur Rehman, Chair Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.

Delimitations, Voter Suppression, and New Policies

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has made several decisions that differ from previous patterns. They announced they will not upload the voter lists on their website unlike the previous election. Furthermore, they have disallowed print and electronic media from conducting polls and surveys at stations or constituencies. Dawn newspaper, which has traditionally shielded the election commission (ECP) from criticism finally concluded that  ECP “remains unable to demonstrate that it is sufficiently committed to fostering the conditions necessary to hold a free, fair and inclusive election.”

Sarwar Bari also pointed out several flaws in delimitation and shared that more than 13 million eligible persons are likely to be disenfranchised due to various factors & millions of ghost voters still exist on electoral rolls. Another report mentioned that a significant proportion of the constituencies violate the 10% violation rule.

Final Word

The 2024 General Elections are the most rigged elections in history, according to a broad spectrum of journalists, analysts, and political observers. In a guest essay in the Economist, Imran Khan warned that Pakistan’s elections are headed to be a farce.

“Unfortunately, the establishment had decided I could not be allowed to return to power, so all means of removing me from the political landscape were used. There were two assassination attempts on my life. My party’s leaders, workers and social- media activists, along with supportive journalists, were abducted, incarcerated, tortured and pressured to leave PTI.”

While the field is already highly rigged against PTI, its immense support base is keen not to leave it completely open and has not boycotted the elections. To what extent the authorities will steal the people’s mandate during and after the polling remains to be seen.