It can boil down to Nawaz Sharif vs Imran Khan

On March 16, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)-led government handed over charge to an interim government led by a respected jurist justice Mir Hazara Khan Khoso. This was a unique event in Pakistan’s turbulent history since its birth on August 14, 1947.  It was the first instance when an elected government in Pakistan completed its constitutionally mandated five-year term, without having been thrown out of office by internal destabilisation,  or the acts of a malevolent president, or even, more importantly, by an ambitious army chief, seizing power by getting his elite 111 Brigade stationed in Rawalpindi, to stage a coup d’état.  There is little doubt that when Pakistan’s history is written, the credit for this achievement will be given to an unlikely hero: its much reviled president Asif Ali Zardari.

The magnitude of Zardari’s achievement can be better understood if one understands the challenges he faced. He firstly had to act decisively to seize control of the dynastic-oriented PPP, whose cadres and members owed their loyalty solely to Benazir Bhutto. He then had to hold the party together by playing off regional satraps in the party, like Makhdoom Amin Fahim in Sind, against each other. Given the feudal nature of Pakistan’s body politic, its politicians are notorious for their propensity to join hands even with the military to attain power. It was because of Zardari’s political skills that he was able to hold a fractious coalition through five turbulent years. Meanwhile, he also had to deal with an arrogant and overbearing army chief general Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and a hostile and egotistical chief justice, who was determined to get him arrested and prosecuted on charges of corruption.

During the last general elections in Pakistani in 2008, Zardari’s People’s Party (PPP) won 121 of the 342 seats. Its major partner in the ruling coalition was the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) which won 54 seats and was made up of members of Nawaz Sharif’s PML (N), who defected and made common cause with General Musharraf. Two other members of the ruling coalition were the Awami National Party and the MQM Party. Zardari also secured support from the pro-Taliban, but opportunist Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Islam led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman.

A public opinion poll in Pakistan gave an indication of the mood of the youth, which is going to play an important role in the forthcoming elections; 94% of the youth thought the country was going in the wrong direction. The society at large is becoming more conservative and religiously inclined; 64% of the male youth and 75% of women are becoming more conservative, in religious terms. There is little optimism about prospects of youth employment. Do young Pakistanis want or respect democracy, or democratic institutions? The survey revealed that while only 29% support democracy, 32% favour military rule, while 38% favour imposition of Islamic sharia. This conservatism in the youth is particularly evident in the Pashtun-dominated Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, in Punjab and in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

With general elections due on May 11, the focus is naturally on who will rule Pakistan after the elections. The outside world and especially Pakistan’s neighbours are keeping their fingers crossed. Pakistan is fortunate that it’s current chief election commissioner, the 83-year-old Justice Fakhruddin Ebrahim, is a man of integrity. But, the mood across the country does not encourage optimism that elections will see a triumph of pragmatic moderation over religious extremism. Growing radicalisation of youth in Pakistan is resulting in internal strife and an increase in the number of  groups dedicated to jihad in India and Afghanistan and to eliminate those they regard as kaffirs, like the religious minorities, Shias, Ahmedis and even Sufis. Attacks on Shias and Ahmadis, their places of worship and even their graveyards have grown. Candidates of secular parties like the Awami National Party have faced death threats from the Taliban and are expected to lose ground in an election held in a climate of terror and intimidation. Radical Islamic parties like the JUI and others like Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf, who have links with the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, will gain from these developments, especially in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and in the Pashtun tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

The real contest will, however, be in the populous Punjab Province which accounts for 182 of the 342 parliamentary seats. Northern and central Punjab, from which the bulk of the Pakistan army is recruited and is the home of terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, have for long been the stronghold of Nawaz Sharif’s PML(N). On the other hand, southern Punjab, which is Seraiki and not Punjabi-speaking and a region where rich, land-owning pirs like former prime minister Syed Ali Shah Gilani are influential, has been a PPP stronghold. Uncertainty over how these two parts of Punjab will vote has been primarily because Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf could well rally disaffected youth and split the votes of the PP and PML(N). The trump card for the PPP remains its promise to create a separate province for the disaffected Seraiki-speaking population in southern Punjab and from Shias disaffected with the ties of Nawaz Sharif’s Party with armed extremist Sunni groups.

In this complex political matrix, the expectation is that the ruling PPP will lose a number of seats because of anti-incumbency resulting from declining growth rates, spiralling inflation and corruption charges. Nawaz Sharif’s PML(N) could emerge as the single largest party in parliament. But, within the influential Punjabi military establishment, Imran Khan is popular, given his party’s not too covert links with the army-backed Difa E Pakistan Council, a conglomerate of jihadi groups presided over by the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Pakistan is heading towards a rule by a fractious coalition. But, on this occasion, Islamist parties like the JUI will play a greater role. This would not be good news for India or Afghanistan and will be viewed in capitals like Washington and Moscow with concern.

The writer is a former diplomat