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When Nawaz Sharif became the Prime Minister of Pakistan last year international observers thought the country was heading down the right path. For the first time in Pakistani history power was peacefully passed from one democratically elected government to another. Sharif’s government made tackling corruption and high unemployment a priority. It also sought to rein in the power of the Pakistani Army, which still seeks to execute a veto of internal security measures and foreign policies. Unfortunately, Sharif’s government now finds itself under siege from political protesters that are demanding its removal. Led by two minor politicians, these forces allege that Sharif’s government illegitimately came to power in a fraudulent election and that it is too corrupt to lead. Protesters are blocking government buildings in the capital city of Islamabad and the unrest might give the Pakistani military an excuse to topple the civilian government, something that the military has done three times previously in the country’s history.
This topic brief will break down the major players in the current Pakistani political crisis, discuss the course of the current protests, and then analyze the chances of a military coup and the future Pakistan faces if instability continues.
Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.
Who’s Who?
Pakistan’s government is currently headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Sharif’s party is the Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the PML-N won a resounding victory in the last parliamentary election, which was held in May 2013. In that election, the PML-N captured 190 of the 342 seats in the Pakistani National Assembly and it peacefully secured power from the then-governing Pakistani Peoples Party (PPP). Sharif has served as prime minister twice before, as he governed from 1990-1993 and 1997-1999. Sharif’s last tenure as prime minister ended in his overthrow by the Pakistani military. That coup was led by former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who is now on trial for treason. It is no secret that Sharif does not have any love lost for the Pakistani military and its intelligence services. He has sought to reduce their powers and they have resented it. As the owner of Ittefaq Group, a major steel producer, Sharif is one of his country’s wealthiest people. He has made tackling hyperinflation, energy shortages, and economic inefficiencies a priority. He is also open to having closer ties to India, which irks some in the military.
The second-largest party in the National Assembly is the PPP, which lost the 2013 parliamentary elections to the PML-N. Although the PPP is not participating in the protests against Sharif and has denounced elements of them for trying to subvert the country’s democratic process, extempers should keep a careful eye on the party. It is not unusual in Pakistani politics for parties that have little in common to form alliances to bring down a sitting government. If the PPP were to turn against Sharif and demand early elections, it might force his hand to do so. The party is co-chaired by Asif Ali Zardari, who served as Pakistani President from 2008-2013 and was married to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who is the son of Zardari and Bhutto. After dabbling in the politics of democratic socialism in the 1970s, the PPP now supports laissez-faire-style economic policies and takes credit for enabling Pakistan to acquire nuclear weapons. The party’s gradual evolution from the political left to the political right has created tensions within its ranks and that played a role in its poor performance in the 2013 parliamentary elections.
One of the current protests against Sharif is led by Imran Khan. Khan, one of the country’s greatest cricket players (he is a member of the International Cricket Council Hall of Fame), is the leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). The PTI won thirty-four seats in the National Assembly in the 2013 elections and controls the provincial assembly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province). Khan’s party is an instrument of populism and disatisfaction with the political status quo. The PTI seeks to create a democratic, just society that is founded on Islamic principles. This does not mean that the party is extremist. Instead, it wishes to use Islamic principles of care for the aged, sick, and infirm to create a more equitable society. It supports the education of women, greater education for all Pakistanis, a more transparent government, religious and ethnic tolerance, and wants to wean Pakistan off of foreign aid. The PTI has blasted the existing Pakistani government for being corrupt and perpetuating policies that work against the interests of poor Pakistanis. Khan charges that Sharif and the PML-N represent the status quo that has led the country to disaster since it won independence in 1947.
The other protest in Islamabad is led by cleric Tahirul Qadri. Qadri is the founder of Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) and, according to Al Jazeera on August 21, he controls a network of Islamic schools and hospitals. In a piece written for CNN on August 20, Qadri claims to be seeking the establishment of a “participatory democracy” that would empower local communities at the expense of the central government. Qadri wants to limit the number of ministerial portfolios held by the central government and expand the number of Pakistani provincial units from four to thirty-five. He has a ten point plan for improving Pakistan. Some of the tenets of this plan include food and utilities subsidies for the poor, free housing for the homeless, jobs for unemployed men and women, better education, and an active campaign against terrorism. Like Khan, Qadri wants Sharif to resign, but he takes it a step further by demanding that all of the country’s legislative institutions be dissolved. He also wants a murder case to be brought against the sitting government for killing some of his supporters. Despite insisting that he wants peaceful change, Qadri is known for making some incendiary remarks. The Diplomat on August 18 reveals that before the protests in Islamabad, Qadri told his followers to “kill anyone who returns without completing the job [of bringing down the existing government].” Qadri mobilized his followers to protest before the 2013 parliamentary elections as well. Those protests amounted to little and ended in hundreds of arrests.
The last figure to watch in the Pakistani political struggle is Pakistani Army Chief Raheel Sharif. For clarification, General Sharif is not related to Prime Minister Sharif. General Sharif came into his position last November and he comes from a military family. In his previous position as Inspector General for Training and Evaluation, Sharif led a change in Pakistani military training so that the country’s armed forces could best fight militant groups near the Afghan border. If there is a coup launched against the central government, Sharif would be the man to lead it since Pakistan’s previous coups were carried out by those who occupied his position (e.g. Ayub Khan, Zia ul-Haq, and Pervez Musharraf). At the moment, though, it is unclear whether Sharif would even entertain the idea of a coup. The Diplomat on August 21 reports that Sharif is a great battlefield tactician and that is where his true interest lies. He is said to have few political ambitions, which might be the saving grace of the sitting government if tensions continue to rise.
The Current Protests
At the center of the current protests against Sharif’s government is the handling of the 2013 parliamentary elections. The International Crisis Group on August 21 writes that Khan argues the elections were rigged by a combination of the PML-N, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), and Iftikhar Chaudhry, the then-Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court. Khan alleges that the media and other government and civil institutions played a part in the rigging effort. The 2013 elections were deemed fair by international observers, but some irregularities have emerged in the aftermath of the elections. For example, the Election Commission conceded that there were problems with the vote in Karachi, which is Pakistan’s largest city. There is also suspicion that judicial authorities worked to thwart investigations into the outcome of the vote in some provinces. Still, evidence that suggests the PML-N substantially benefitted from voter fraud is not apparent.
On August 14, which is Pakistani Independence Day, Khan rallied his supporters in Lahore, the capital city of Punjab province, and began a march on Islamabad with the stated goal of forcing Prime Minister Sharif to resign. Khan hoped that he would pick up a million followers in his march to Islamabad, but estimates suggest that no more than 40,000 took part. During the march, Khan’s supporters were joined by disaffected Pakistanis and supporters of Tahirul Qadri. Extempers should note that Khan and Qadri are not jointly coordinating their operations. Their supporters are in Islamabad protesting against the government, but they are not working together – at least overtly – regarding tactics. They seem to not have the same aims beyond getting Sharif out of power either.
In an attempt to head off the protests, Prime Minister Sharif appeared to make some concessions to the opposition, although he stopped well short of resigning his post. The UK Telegraph on August 19 notes that Sharif set up a judicial commission to investigate the rigging allegations that Khan has made. Sharif’s government also created a parliamentary committee to examine electoral reform. This would appear to satisfy at least some of Khan’s demands, but since Khan did not secure a pledge from Sharif to resign and call for snap elections, he dismissed these proposals as not going far enough.
When the protesters arrived in Islamabad, Khan and Qadri initially said that they would not breach the “Red Zone” of the capital. This is the core of the city that includes the public homes of the prime minister, president, foreign ambassadors, as well as the National Assembly and the Supreme Court buildings. The International Crisis group explains that before the protests, Sharif’s government gave power to the military under Article 245 of the constitution to secure Islamabad and to protect Red Zone buildings. The Christian Science Monitor reports on August 19 that there are 700 troops guarding the Red Zone and more than 30,000 members of the Pakistani security forces are deployed throughout the capital. On the evening of August 19, Khan and Qadri’s followers cut through the barbed wire and locks that connected shipping containers blocking protesters from entering the Red Zone. These people then launched a sit-in to barricade the National Assembly and Supreme Court. Khan has indicated that he wants to launch a “Tahrir Square”-style protest to pressure Sharif’s hand and has even warned that his followers could storm the prime minister’s home, which would likely trigger an aggressive military response. Time on August 20 says that the reason Sharif’s government did not order the military to keep protesters out of the Red Zone was because several demonstrators brought their families with them. Unwilling to shed the blood of women and children, which would produce a public relations disaster, Sharif thought it better to allow the opposition to assemble in the Red Zone.
The government tried to reach out to Khan for talks, but those talks have gone nowhere. The Wall Street Journal on August 15 writes that Sharif refuses to resign and call new elections, which is at the core of the demand made by Khan and Qadri. For his part, Khan says that his protesters will remain indefinitely until changes are made, but there is no guarantee that will happen. It is possible that protesters will get wary once the initial enthusiasm of the demonstrations wane or that the government will evict them with force. The Supreme Court already ruled that long-term protests in the capital are illegal, but there is no evidence that Khan or Qadri are willing to listen to their rulings. The Huffington Post on August 21 points out that Khan broke off initial talks with the government because Sharif refused to resign and Sharif’s government used “disrespectful language” about the PTI. As of Saturday, Khan entered into new talks with the government, but according to Al Jazeera on August 22, all members of his party submitted their resignations from the National Assembly. Khan has vowed to do this at the provincial level as well, although the PTI says that it will not do so in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This opened it up to charges that it was being hypocritical since it was unwilling to give up power in the only province it controls.
While Khan’s strategy appears to be to further reduce the legitimacy of Sharif’s government, he has yet to gain the support of other important political actors. While it is true that Qadri’s forces have lent their backing to the protests, they have an alternative vision for Pakistan and their own unique agenda. The BBC on August 19 writes that the government has accused protesters of trying to “derail democracy” and Al Jazeera on August 21 writes that the National Assembly adopted a unanimous resolution reaffirming constitutional supremacy and the legitimacy of the Sharif government. The Pakistani Dawn, Pakistan’s oldest newspaper, points out on August 21 that the United States is not lending its support to the protesters. Instead, the U.S. is warning against “extra-constitutional transfers of power” and the European Union (EU) is reminding Pakistan that its chances of signing a trade deal would be jeopardized by ousting Sharif through street protests. As the previous section of this brief indicated, the PPP is not supporting the protests and the country’s business establishment, according to the UK Telegraph article previously cited, are very critical of the protests. Business leaders have a reason to hate the protests as The Diplomat article previously cited from August 18 notes that the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) saw its largest-ever drop on August 11 as investors foresaw the beginnings of Khan’s protest. Bloomberg on August 21 also writes that the protests could imperil a sizable loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Unless Khan or Qadri are able to convince business leaders, civic officials, and other political blocs to support their movement it has little chance of success. They might win concessions from the government in terms of getting some electoral reforms, but they are not going to topple Sharif. At worst, the existing protests appear to the world as an attempt to topple a legitimately elected government and the thought of tens of thousands of protesters speaking for nearly 200 million Pakistanis is laughable.
A New Coup?
The biggest worry of Sharif’s government is that the Pakistani military will use the unrest to launch another coup. Predicting coups is a difficult business. Near the end of last season, I predicted that it was unlikely that Thailand’s military would use political unrest to overthrow Yingluck Shinawatra’s government. A few days after that brief was released, the Thai military launched a coup. As I noted in the profile of General Raheel Sharif, he appears to have few political ambitions. The Huffington Post article cited earlier adds that the military knows that the Pakistani economy is not in good shape right now. If it launched a coup, the military would inherit an economic mess, a polarized political landscape, and some immediate foreign policy problems since they may not receive recognition from major aid partners. A coup might even make economic problems worse, as The Diplomat on August 21 writes that China, a long-time Pakistani ally, is reluctant to strengthen its economic relationship to Pakistan since it has concerns that the country cannot protect Chinese citizens. Investors are also unwilling to put their money in a country where unrest could destabilize a sitting government. Another reason why the Pakistani military may not conduct a coup is because it is preoccupied by other operations. For the last two months, the army has been conducting Operation Zarb e-Azaab (“Sharp Strike”) against Islamic militants in North Waziristan. The Center for Strategic and International Studies on August 20 writes that terrorism is a growing problem in Pakistan, with attacks rising from under fifty in 2005 to 2,300 in 2013. Clearing out militants is a necessity for Sharif’s government, as well as other political parties in Pakistan, and it is also required for the country to continue receiving over a billion dollars in U.S. military aid. China is demanding that Pakistan take action as well, as it fears that Uyghur militants are using Pakistan as a sanctuary. Furthermore, the Pakistani military is engaged in Kashmir, where it conducts operations parallel to India along the Line of Control. With their energies directed elsewhere, it may be difficult for the Pakistani military to spend its time preoccupied with taking over and governing the country.
Still, even if the military does not use the protests to launch a coup it may benefit from the protests in other ways. The Washington Post on August 20 argues that the military’s call last week for Sharif’s government to engage in talks with Khan and Qadri might be a tacit signal that it is supporting the protesters. Observers are currently arguing over whether Sharif made a correct decision giving control of the Red Zone’s security to the military. After all, if the military chose to launch a coup, they would have the power to do so due to their proximity to government buildings. Foreign Policy on August 20 reports that there was an alleged meeting that took place between Sharif and military officials last week whereby the military promised the PML-N that it would not launch a coup as long as the civilian government gave it full rights to the foreign policy and internal security portfolios. If true, this means that Sharif would be safe from a coup, but at the cost of giving the military a veto over important government decisions. As a result, The Economist on August 20 argues that the protests may have had the effect of giving the Pakistani military powers it initially lost when Sharif took power in 2013.
Aside from a military intervention, the only way that the crisis will abate is if Khan and Qadri are willing to negotiate in good faith with Sharif and accept some of the reforms the sitting government has already offered. The International Crisis Group highly recommends that all sides in the conflict exercise restraint, respect the Pakistani Constitution, and agree to compromises that are beneficial for all parties. The Diplomat previously cited from August 18 floats the idea that Khan and Qadri already have an out from the current crisis. They may not topple Sharif, but they might secure a Supreme Court investigation into the 2013 elections and claim that the protests have enabled them to raise awareness of their goals. This is especially important for Qadri, who loves the opportunities given to him to discuss elements of his ten-point plan. The risk, though, is that Khan and Qadri may have heightened the expectations of those supporting them to such an extent that anything less than toppling Sharif would be deemed a failure and disappointment. In that case, protesters might resort to violence out of frustration and that could do significant damage to the country’s body politic. It is now the responsibility of the political leadership to settle the dispute in a way where all sides can escape without losing face.
Pakistan’s political problems illustrate the difficulties of operating a democratic republic. Parties that lose elections in young democratic republics are prone to alleging fraud, whether it existed or not. Over the last year this has been seen in Afghanistan and Indonesia, among other places. Democratic republics require populations and political actors to submit to final vote totals and challenges to the legitimacy of that process can reverberate for a long time. One could argue that the controversial outcome of the 2000 presidential election played a significant role in polarizing the United States and undermining some of the public’s faith in the electoral process. Although the United States is held up as a bastion of republican politics, it is not as if the road to the modern era was easy. Shays’ Rebellion destroyed faith in the Articles of Confederation, President George Washington put down the Whiskey Rebellion during his first term, there were fears that President John Adams would not hand over power to president-elect Thomas Jefferson in 1801, Northeast states flirted with secession during the War of 1812, Southern states did secede – albeit briefly – during the American Civil War, and the Great Depression nearly threw America into the arms of fascists. Republics are not built overnight, but Pakistan’s democracy will not survive if Sharif’s government is toppled by thousands of protesters as that would undermine the constitutional principles republics are based on.