A CROWN OF THORNS

SHEHBAZ SHARIF IS SET TO TAKE OVER AS PAKISTAN PM AGAIN AFTER A FRACTURED VERDICT. HE NOW HAS TO TACKLE A COLLAPSING ECONOMY, HIGH INFLATION, UNRULY IMRAN SUPPORTERS AND A DOMINEERING ARMY

- HASAN ZAIDI

HISTORY HAS A NASTY HABIT OF REPEATING ITSELF IN PAKISTAN. The sarcastic wit of well-known poet Salman Pirzada summed up the situation as the results of General Election 2024 came in. In a Facebook post, he quipped in Urdu, “The oppressors did such blatant rigging that it reminded me of the 2018 elections.” On the one hand, he was referring to the outrage of the supporters of incarcerated former prime minister Imran Khan, whose Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party-backed candidates won the highest number of seats at the federal level but who were also crying foul that many results were manipulated to deny the PTI a majority. On the other, Pirzada was citing the nearly identical situation in the previous general election in 2018, when other parties had levelled similar allegations of electoral manipulation that had allowed Imran Khan to come to power by the slimmest of margins.

On the face of it, both allegations seem to carry weight. As in 2018, this time, too, there are many seats where the final tally of votes represented a complete reversal of what initial counts suggested. The only difference is that, in 2018, the PTI had been the happy beneficiary, while in 2024, it has borne the brunt, with the anti-PTI parties—primarily former premier Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the urban Sindh-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM)—being the beneficiaries. The target of the allegations both times has been the ‘Establishment’, Pakistan’s euphemism for the military.

The army had already indicated a preference for Shehbaz over Nawaz, who was prone to take a more independent path