A look at the past three elections in Pakistan

Elections 2024 are just round the corner and the political parties are eager to contest in what is already being termed the most ‘crucial elections in the history of Pakistan’.

In the last three general elections of Pakistan, the voters have given three different political parties mandate to lead the country.

The 2008 General Elections

In 2008 general elections the Pakistan People’s Party emerged victorious in the first election, when the rule of Pervaiz Musharraf was in its waning stage, after the trauma of assassination of its iconic leader Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi in a terrorist attack.

Pakistan entered in the 20th Century under the military rule of Gen. Pervez Musharraf. General Elections in 2008 and 2013, with the Parliament completed its tenure and an amicable transfer of power took place, were seen as maturity of a political system in Pakistan after a very long time.

Political temperatures in the country soared from the day Benazir Bhutto landed in Pakistan on Oct 18, 2007. Her home coming parade in Karachi was targeted in a terrorist attack at Karsaz area leaving several dozens dead. BB survived the deadly attack after several youthful People’s Party workers protected their leader by sacrificing their lives. It was the prologue of the general elections in which at least 25 suicide attacks reported till polling day, Feb 18, 2008. These attacks claimed hundreds of lives, including that of the iconic Benazir Bhutto herself, who was martyred in another terrorist attack on Dec 27, in Rawalpindi.

The 2008 general elections were amongst the most violent elections in Pakistan.

The country found itself sitting on a keg of gunpowder. Benazir had returned to the country amid rumours that her party had struck a deal with Gen Pervez Musharraf and that this had been supported by the world powers.

As Gen Musharraf had started loving the limelight. He got himself elected as the president from a parliament whose term was about to expire in a month or two. Before that he issued the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) withdrawing cases against a number of politicians.

Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan paved the way for Nawaz Sharif’s return to the country who was in exile in Saudi Arabia. Nawaz landed in Lahore on Nov 25, 2007, electrifying the election environment and unsettling the political equation in Punjab. Pro-Musharraf PML-Q had been built with the turncoats of the PML-N and everyone knew that the experienced politician could unsettle the crumbling king’s party. Nawaz however opted to play safe.

His reluctance, coupled with the re-election of a president-in-uniform, helped the PML-Q, which was named Pakistan Muslim League (PML), dropping the suffix Q.

The party converted the electoral duels between the PPP and the PML-N into a triangular affair. In Punjab the PPP, the PML and the PML-N all polled around six million votes each, with the later winning the most seats.

The PPP, led by Zardari, topped the most seats list. It won 95 general seats in the Parliament including seats from all four provinces.

The Mutahidda Majlis-i-Amal lost more than three-quarters of its voters and 40 of the 45 seats it had won in 2002 elections.

Some parties had concluded that an elected parliament had little or no meaning under a president in military uniform. They boycotted the elections, including Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party of Mehmood Achakzai.

Baloch nationalist parties had their own reasons to stay away including killing of prominent Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti in August 2006.

With addition of reserved seats for women and minorities, the PPP’s numbers at the federal level rose to 122 which was way short of a simple majority. But this hung parliament did not result in a political stalemate but the parties showed signs of maturity to tackle the challenge. The divided mandate meant that only a coalition government was possible.

Gen Musharraf had got boomerang of his decision in March 2007, by dismissing Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who was restored by the Supreme Judicial Council in July same year. The decision resulted in a lawyer’s movement that exposed that the general’s days were numbered.

His re-election by the outgoing parliament and his double office were challenged in the court. He proclaimed emergency rule on Nov 3, 2007, and launched a massive purge in the judiciary and also quit his military office.

The new parliament showed its teeth and threatened him with impeachment on a number of matters, including his subversion of the constitution in the 1999 coup. He was forced to step down in August 2008.

The People’s Party displayed its mastery in the art of possible. Asif Ali Zardari was elected the new president in September 2008, and that completed the process of the restoration of a civilian and elected government in Pakistan.

General Elections 2013

The 2013 General Elections, which were held on May 11, 2013, voters had to elect the members of the National Assembly as well as the provincial assemblies of Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, for next five years.

PML-N led by Nawaz Sharif emerged as the largest single party in the Parliament and Nawaz became the Prime Minister of Pakistan, for record third time.

Before the elections the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) entered in an alliance with the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional of Pir Pagara and some Balochistan based parties.

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) joined hands with the Pakistan Muslim League, led by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and the Awami National Party.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led by Imran Khan, also surfaced as a key political player in the national politics in the general election.

Like in previous general election, the result was a hung parliament again with the PML-N receiving the most votes and winning the most seats in the National Assembly. It fell short of six seats to win a majority in the Parliament. In the post election scene, 19 independent members joined the PML-N, allowing the party to form Its government with Nawaz Sharif as the Leader of the House and Prime Minister.

In the provincial elections, the People’s Party was able to defend its majority in Sindh. The PTI won the most seats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, this was the first time Imran Khan led party had won a province in the election. The PML-N bagged majority in Punjab as well as in Balochistan.

It was the first civilian transfer of power following the successful completion of a five-year term by an elected government.

Imran Khan after conceding elections demanded re-polls in constituencies while alleging rigging and irregularities in elections. Khan alleged that Najam Sethi, a seasoned journalist and interim chief minister of Punjab had rigged results in 35 constituencies during the national elections. He told journalists of hearing a telephonic conversation between Nawaz Sharif and Sethi, recorded hours before poll results were declared on 11 May, 2013.

PTI and Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri’s Pakistan Awami Tehreek launched their protest march from 14 August which came to an end on 17 December 2014. The claimed of systematic election-rigging by the PML-N in the 2013 general election. A day after the 2014 Peshawar school massacre, Khan called off the protest on 17 December.

A judicial commission was formed by the government to probe the allegations of vote-rigging: It found the election to have been largely conducted in a free and fair manner, while also stating that PTI’s request for a probe was not “entirely unjustified”.

Violence before and on Polling Day

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed the responsibility for two bombings at the offices of independent candidates on 28 April, 2013. In Kohat, the TTP bombed ANP’s Nasir Khan Afridi’s office which killed six and critically wounded others. In the suburbs of Peshawar, a bomb device killed three people. The next day, at least eight people, including the son of an Afghan. The same day, at a Karachi press conference the leaders of the PPP, MQM and ANP said that the attacks would not stop them from participating in the election. On 2 May, a bomb exploded outside the MQM head office in which seven people were injured. On 4 May, at least three people were killed and 34 others were wounded when two bombs targeted the election office of MQM in Azizabad area of Karachi.

In a rally in Kurram Valley, at least 15 people were dead and over 50 injured in bombing at JUI(F) election rally. On May 09, Ali Haider Gilani, a son of former PM Yousaf Raza Gilani, was kidnapped following a gunfight at a rally in Multan that killed his personal secretary.

Scattered gun and bomb attacks marred the election day. By the time polls closed in the evening, at least 20 people had died in attacks. The violence, which included blasts outside a political office in Karachi that left 10 dead, capped a bloody election season. More than 130 people were killed in bombings and shootings over the campaign, prompting some to call this one of the deadliest elections in the country’s history.

Panama Papers case (2016)

In the hindsight the Panama Papers disclosures proved major political debacle for Nawaz Sharif. On April 03, 2016 the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) made 11.5 million secret documents, later known as the Panama Papers, available to the public.

The documents, leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, among revelations about various global public figures from other countries, included details of eight offshore companies with links to the family of Nawaz Sharif, the then-incumbent Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Imran Khan filed a petition to the Supreme Court of Pakistan seeking the disqualification of Sharif from the public office.

The apex court in a 3-2 verdict, decided to form a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to inquire into allegations. The JIT in its report recommended the NAB to file a reference against Sharif, his daughter Maryam, and his sons under section 9 of National Accountability Ordinance.

Nawaz Sharif was declared disqualified under articles 62 and 63 of the constitution. The court also ordered the National Accountability Bureau to file a reference against Sharif, his family and his former Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on corruption charges.

Ruling PML-N party replaced Nawaz Sharif with Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, a loyal lieutenant of Sharif, as the new prime minister of Pakistan.

General Elections 2018

General elections on July 25, 2018, the PTI received the most votes and won the most seats in the National Assembly.

At the provincial level, the PTI remained the largest party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) retained its dominance in Sindh and the newly formed Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) emerged as the largest party in Balochistan.

In Punjab, the result was a hung parliament with the PML-N winning the most seats. However, after several independent MPAs joined the PTI, the latter became the largest party and was able to form government in the province.

Following the 2018 elections, six major political parties including the PML-N claimed there had been large-scale vote rigging and administrative malpractices, however, the party conceded its defeat and thus given legitimacy to elections.

Imran Khan, chairman of the PTI, proceeded to form a coalition government, including members of the MQM-P and PML-Q as coalition partners.

This was the second consecutive transfer of power after the assemblies completed their term in Pakistan’s recent transition to democracy.

Pakistan’s election commission rejected reports of rigging. The voter turnout in the election dropped from 55.0% in 2013 to 51.7%.

The PTI was able to lure more electables to the party than PML-N. The new opposition decided against boycotting the parliament, lending legitimacy to the electoral process by parliamentary participation.

Initially a recount was ordered in 14 constituencies because of procedural errors. Moreover, procedural errors then led to a recount on 70 constituencies by the election commission. After the conclusion of these recounts, the ECP published a seat tally which confirmed PTI’s position of being the largest party in the National Assembly.

The margin for the Punjab election was narrow between the PTI and PML-N, but independents and PML-Q endorsed federal winners PTI, which led to Imran Khan led party to form government in Punjab. Thus the PML-N lost the elections both at the provincial as well as at the federal level. The party nominated Shehbaz Sharif as the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly and his son Hamza Shahbaz as opposition leader in Punjab.

The PTI government, faced a formidable challenge in the shape of the Coronavirus Pandemic, which began from China to spread across the globe. The disease, which was named by the World Health Organization (WHO) as Covid-19 hit the world hard paralyzing the economy and other fields across the world, radically changing the life at the planet.

The party also faced governance issues, ever-changing economic Czars, FBR top officers and rapid changes in key economic offices of the country. The PTI tenure witnessed regular reshuffles of top bureaucrats, police chiefs, federal and provincial ministers creating an impression of flux indicating absence of continuity and consistency in policies.

Ever-increasing prices of essential commodities also questioning the government’s ability to keep the prices in control, providing fuel to the opposition’s narrative and criticism of the government.

Which led the opposition parties to get strength and moral high ground resulting in success of the no confidence motion and removal of Imran Khan from the top government office. Thus again a prime minister of Pakistan failed to complete his full term of the office.