Pakistan is gearing up for the general elections scheduled for February 8. On Sunday, January 21, the country’s election commission released the final list of candidates contesting for seats in the federal and provincial legislatures.
According to the statistics, a total of 17,816 candidates are set to compete in the elections for national and provincial assemblies. The commission said that more than 28,000 had registered to run for election.
The election is expected to be one of the most consequential elections in Pakistan. The country’s economy struggles with high inflation, low foreign credit, unemployment, and rising poverty. Insecurity and terrorist attacks have seen an unprecedented spike in the last year.
According to a recent report published by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, there has been a staggering 69% rise in militant attacks and an 81% increase in resultant death during the year 2023, predominantly focused in KyberPakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan, the home provinces of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA).
Earlier today, January 22, Pakistan’s military media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), reported the killing of at least seven “terrorists” in an intelligence-based operation near its border with Afghanistan. Just two weeks ago, an independent candidate from northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was killed in a gunfire attack on his vehicle by unknown gunmen.
Political parties and observers believe that Pakistan needs a new government to reestablish legitimacy, regain foreign creditors’ trust, and reign in insecurity.
Among those on the ballot are former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who managed to return from self-exile along with his brother Shehbaz Sharif. Other prominent political figures include former president Asif Ali Zardari whose son, Bilawal Zardari Bhutto, leads the Pakistan People’s Party.
However, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has rejected the nominations of 71-year-old former prime minister Imran Khan along with several other members of Pakistan’s Tahreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. Mr. Khan who is in jail now in connection to multiple legal cases along with several of his party members has had a fallout with the country’s national security establishment that was believed to have brought him to power in the first place.
Among the candidates are also 882 females. Women candidates compete against a historical backdrop of powerful women leaders in politics on the one hand and a society becoming more conservative on the other. In 1960, Fatima Jinnah, the younger sister of the country’s founding father Mohammad Ali Jinnah became the first woman opposition leader. She led the opposition after losing the election to the country’s military ruler Muhammad Ayub Khan until she died in 1967.
In the 1980s, the young Benazir Bhutto became a riveting force in Pakistani politics after returning from exile to compete in elections. Similar to Jinnah, Bhutto also came from a very politically powerful family. His late father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was Pakistan’s Prime Minister until he was executed in the aftermath of a military coup by Army Chief General Zia-ul-Haq. Bhutto eventually served as Prime Minister from 1988 to 1990 and then again from 1993 to 1996.
Among the candidates are also four transgenders. The LGBTQ community faces widespread violence and restrictions in Pakistan. Transgenders, however, have historically had more breathing spaces than other members of the community, which is not unique to Pakistan. In Iran, for example, the conservative Islamic Republic even supports gender transition operations for trans people while brutally prosecuting gays and lesbians.
In May 2023, the Pakistan Sharia Court in Islamabad ruled against several sections of the Transgender Act, a law that advocates argued was positive in protecting the rights of trans and gender-diverse people in the country. The court’s reservations calling these sections UnIslamic deprived them of inheritance rights, among others. All four transgender people are running as independent candidates, signaling perhaps the long road the community has to be accepted by the country’s mainstream political parties who have nominated more than 6000 candidates. Whether they will be able to garner public support will be a test for Pakistan’s conservative society.
There are already worries about the credibility of the electoral process. Earlier this month, Pakistan’s independent human rights commission said that there is little chance of free and fair parliamentary elections in the country next month because of “pre-poll rigging.” The watchdog also expressed concern about authorities rejecting the candidacies of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and most other members of his party.
The country’s upper house of parliament recently passed a resolution asking for a one-month postponement of the polls. Although the request has not found traction, it would have been the second delay in the elections so far. Former President Zardari who is running in the election said yesterday that his country needs a new government to regain the confidence of foreign creditors, arguing that the economy cannot afford another delay of the vote.
