<\/p>\n
It was strange, and it lasted just a few moments. But it felt like democracy.<\/p>\n
Writing about the Pakistan cricket team well over a decade ago, Indian novelist Mukul Kesavan realised it wasn\u2019t quite a touring cricket side so much as an insane theatre company; that it created \u201cmore drama in a single Power Play than most sides manage in a whole tournament\u201d.<\/p>\n
When they were bad, wrote Mukul, they were awful \u2014 \u201cbut there\u2019s no team in cricket that has more electricity about it\u201d. And though he wasn\u2019t about to bet on the men in green, he still thought they had a shot at stealing the cup, \u201cbecause even when they play like the Keystone Cops, the script in their heads is always Ocean\u2019s Eleven\u201d.<\/p>\n
Little of this can carry over, of course, to the far more vicious arena of politics (who better than Mukul to know this, presently writing in defiance of Narendra Modi). Nor can the stakes compare: in Pakistan, the lives and dignity of no less than a quarter-billion people are on the line.<\/p>\n
And yet no one who white-knuckled it through the general election on February 8, 2024, would be able to deny, after such a long, bitter winter, that there was something electric in the air. It was strange, and it lasted just a few moments. But it felt like democracy.<\/p>\n
Depending on your politics, that winter may have frozen over in 2022 or in 2018, in 2007 or 1999, in 1985 or 1977, all the way back to that first soft coup in 1953. But it\u2019s the same sad song each time \u2014 that whenever the popular will comes under threat, its guardians take the path of least resistance.<\/p>\n
Not so on Thursday, when that path was opened up to the voters themselves, millions of them brand-new. Despite decrepit boomer analysts going on and on about how low the turnout would be, the country was and is in the middle of a generational shift \u2014 with voter rolls reflecting as much.<\/p>\n
And by the time polling closed, the people had delivered Pakistan its greatest electoral upset since 1970. Delayed in two provinces for the better part of a year \u2014 with general polls written off for an extra three months \u2014 all it took the voter was nine hours.<\/p>\n
Nine hours, too, to get their vote right: in response to the absurd Supreme Court judgment axing the electoral symbol<\/a> of arguably the country\u2019s most popular party, people voted for pyalas and nalkas and dolphins; chimtas and charpoys and shuttlecocks. Mass disenfranchisement was met with the kind of faith in democracy that, even in this day and age, held the power to astonish.<\/p>\n Not that there weren\u2019t other problems \u2014 the election commission put up its usual trash-fire of a performance, while the government helpfully cut off cellphone signals<\/a> for the whole day. (As protests erupted across the land, the caretakers were busy asking after the health of a fellow figurehead with no place in a real democracy.)<\/p>\n Then, also, comes the fact of who the people actually voted for \u2014 a persecuted party, its jailed leader, thousands of detained workers, scores of criminal cases, rolling blackouts in the media, and police raids without end. In voting for Imran Khan and the PTI, the public chose defiance.<\/p>\n And by some degree, as talking heads read off returns higher than their highest projections, it became clear<\/a> that the PTI had swept Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and then romped through Punjab and Karachi with two-digit leads \u2014 which magically evaporated as time passed.<\/p>\n For a few hours on February 8 though \u2014 the kind that will inform long legal battles ahead \u2014 the popular will was a thing to behold. For the PTI\u2019s most major opponents, it was the sort of defeat where no selection could be claimed \u2014 Dr Yasmin Rashid pulled ahead of Nawaz in Lahore; Maulana Fazl was toppled in DI Khan; the Khattak family was routed from Nowshera; and the sugar cartel\u2019s rolling stones were rejected via fourth-man candidates in South Punjab.<\/p>\n Over in Sindh, there was heartening news in the form of PPP\u2019s Mahesh Kumar Malani defeating the formidable Arbab Ghulam Rahim. A two-time religious minority member on a general seat, it is hoped Malani sets a trend, and that Pakistan lives up to its pluralist promise.<\/p>\n Equally heartening was Karachi\u2019s Jibran Nasir protecting his constituency\u2019s votes regardless of winner, as well as concessions by heavyweights Saad Rafique<\/a> and Ameer Hoti<\/a>. The fact of a federation, too, came shining through: with its rivals\u2019 bases in two other provinces, the PML-N can no longer rely on the complacency of its GT Road seats paving the way to Islamabad.<\/p>\n Amid all these bright spots, however, the fix came hard and fast \u2014 the system crashed itself; losers who went home at night woke up as winners in the morning; and the number of accepted votes was tallied higher in some places than the total number of votes cast.<\/p>\n Soon enough, the elections of 2024 had flamed into a visual disaster \u2014 there was Nawaz Sharif\u2019s uniquely embarrassing Form 47<\/a> doing the rounds on social media (journalist Mansoor Ali Khan compared the effort to a five-year-old child armed with crayons). There were next-day reversals in Karachi, thousands upon thousands of rejected votes from Multan, and the extraordinary story of grandmother Rehana Dar<\/a> in Sialkot, whose huge lead flipped at first light.<\/p>\n Violence is also bleeding back into the headlines \u2014 there are horrendous reports of a PTI protester being critically injured in Shangla and, as this goes to press, the NDM\u2019s Mohsin Dawar being shot in the leg Miranshah.<\/p>\n Other outrightly blatant turnarounds included Salman Akram Raja and Taimur Jhagra\u2019s, both of whom had recorded soaring numbers. And some areas in Balochistan that had witnessed no polling, per Dawn\u2019s<\/em> reporter, had the good manners to post results anyway.<\/p>\n But the scale of such a rig is now becoming self-apparent. With Congresswoman Ilhan Omar leading the way, even the State Department has stirred itself awake to tut-tut Pakistan\u2019s polling process.<\/p>\n That said, domestic problems require domestic solutions: every last instance of ballot-stuffing must be challenged under the law and, more long-term, the returned candidates must abide by some basic rules of the road.<\/p>\n These include, first, that the largest party forms government \u2014 the PTI denied that privilege to the PML-N in Punjab in 2018, despite the latter boasting the most seats in the provincial assembly.<\/p>\n Second, elected governments must be allowed to serve out their full tenure. In torpedoing the PTI via a vote of no-confidence, the unity regime upended a convention established the hard way; the wreckage is still before us.<\/p>\n Third, for any democracy to prosper, it would be best for the Centre to accept an opposition, rather than have the deep state jail its leaders or manage its votes. That would mean restoring Parliament to its rightful place and, rather than place the entire onus on civilians to guard their turf better, also punish those that subvert democracy beyond its reach.<\/p>\nVoting in defiance<\/h2>\n
Rigging allegations<\/h2>\n
What next?<\/h2>\n