Pakistan awaits results of election mired in controversy and suspended mobile services

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Delivery driver Saeed Mehsud headed to the polling station in his Islamabad neighbourhood Thursday morning hoping to cast a ballot for what is possibly Pakistan’s most popular political party, the PTI (Pakistan Movement for Justice), founded by a man he idolizes, cricket star and former prime minister Imran Khan.

But the 38-year-old arrived confused and flustered: Until he got in line outside the boys’ school and began talking to fellow voters, Mr. Mehsud said he had not been able to figure out how to vote for that party, whose name and symbol do not appear on ballots this year, its famous leader imprisoned on questionable charges, some laid only days before the vote.

The party’s ballot symbol, a cricket bat, was outlawed in December, and its candidates were forced to run as independents, each assigned a different symbol. As 40 per cent of Pakistanis are illiterate, those much-publicized ballot symbols are crucial.

“Honestly, I am quite confused by all this,” said Mr. Mehsud, who, like many voters, didn’t even know the name of his local candidate. “I saw no posters for my party, and I honestly expected I would get a text to inform me how I could vote for PTI, but then all phones went silent.”

That’s because early Thursday morning the country’s entire cellphone and mobile-data network was shut down by Pakistan’s military caretaker government; as of early Friday morning, most Pakistanis still had no internet. Officials claimed this was for security reasons in the wake of a series of bomb attacks Wednesday near the border with Afghanistan, but the move prevented PTI supporters from using party apps to find polling stations and identify candidates.

Not until after midnight did it become apparent that he was far from alone in having managed to overcome barriers and cast a vote for a PTI-affiliated candidate. The party asserts that it was leading “significantly” in 150 of the legislature’s 272 directly elected seats (including his), a result seemingly supported by preliminary counts. PTI leader Hammad Azhar declared that the party was prepared to form a government nationally and in several states.

However, it was not clear when, and if, full election results would be released by national and provincial authorities. Without elaborating, Zafar Iqbal, special secretary at the Election Commission of Pakistan, blamed an “internet issue” for the long delay.

Pakistan’s 128 million registered voters are accustomed to a system in which their country’s all-powerful military pulls the strings – and sometimes pulls candidates from the ballot if they challenge its authority. But this election has been so directly controlled that some informed observers are describing this as a new, more overtly military-led era in Pakistani politics.

The vote is taking place at a moment of crisis in Pakistan, as stubborn 30-per-cent inflation and steep currency devaluation have coincided with violent conflicts on its borders with Afghanistan, Iran and India, as well as terrorist upsurges in the country’s west and north. This means that both the economy and large swaths of national policy are dominated by the military.

Yet the military’s decision to banish Mr. Khan’s highly popular party may have backfired, drawing unprecedented public attention to the undemocratic nature of the system – and, possibly, delivering defiant votes to some PTI candidates. Early election results suggested that strong turnout in PTI-supporting districts has kept Mr. Khan’s party competitive.

Mr. Khan, despite being imprisoned, has been a constant presence on the smartphone screens of many voters after his party used artificial intelligence to produce deep-fake videos in which he gives speeches (constructed from texts he writes from prison) urging voters to learn their candidates’ names and remain at polling stations until votes are counted.

In an astonishing reversal of fortune, the most prominent prime ministerial candidate among those allowed to campaign openly is Nawaz Sharif, who has served as prime minister three times since 1990.

Only months ago, he was an international fugitive who had been imprisoned on corruption charges and banned from politics for life before fleeing to Britain. In November, he was invited back to Pakistan, rehabilitated in a court acquittal and allowed to return to politics, in what was widely seen as a military endorsement.

Now, Mr. Khan, who came to office in 2018 as the military’s preferred candidate and an anti-corruption reformer, is the outlawed and imprisoned renegade. During his four-year term in office, he became increasingly critical of the military and of Pakistan’s ties to the United States, favouring much closer relations with Russia and China.

In 2022, his party was ousted from office in a parliamentary non-confidence vote that he described as a plot hatched by the U.S. and Pakistan’s military.

He then faced a series of charges that saw him banned from politics for five years. In May, 2023, after he was arrested on additional charges, his supporters rioted, attacking military bases across the country. This led to further charges. When parliament dissolved that August, the military decided to delay national elections and install a caretaker government.

It was not clear, as recently as last month, that an election would take place. Only a few days before the vote, Mr. Khan was sentenced to 30 years in prison on additional charges, including one that declared his marriage, to faith healer Bushra Bibi, as illegal because both he and she had previously been married.

Those charges were accompanied by police harassment and arrests of PTI candidates and campaign workers, as well as a crackdown on his party’s rallies that forced them to be held in secret, at night and in small numbers. Some Pakistani news outlets say they were told not to report on PTI candidates.

With Mr. Khan’s party banned, this election was on the verge of becoming a contest between two long-established dynasties of Pakistani politics – that of Mr. Sharif, whose brother Shehbaz has also served as prime minister, and that of Bilawal Bhutto, son of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007. Mr. Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party could end up being a kingmaker in a governing coalition if Mr. Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) fails to win a majority.

The fact that PTI has remained a fairly strong party has led some observers to see hope for the future of democracy in Pakistan.

“This is the most competitive election since 2002,” said Muddassir Rizvi, head of an Islamabad-based fair-election watchdog organization. “I remain optimistic. This shows that society is opening up.”

With a report from Reuters