If you’re like most people, you’ve been coping with the difficulties of the coronavirus, and Pakistani politics have not been on your radar. But the situation in Pakistan has now declined to the extent that the consequences are bound to spill over into not just South Asia but also the United States.
Essentially, the Pakistani Army and intelligence services are compromising state democracy. This is resulting in economic destabilization, political unrest, and, some argue, the collapse of a nuclear armed nation. It is no secret that when current Prime Minister, Imran Khan, came to power on an anti-corruption platform in 2018, it was with an alliance with the security state that was more than unusual even for Pakistan. The army and security agencies have long attempted to manage civilian governments to the vexation of all parties and the nation’s detriment. But Imran Khan, a former national cricket player with limited experience in government, was truly the security elite’s ticket to fully running the country.
It has been reported that military leaders are directly involved in organizing legislative meetings, reining in politicians, pressuring judges to issue certain rulings, and managing the Pakistani Assembly. The current government is just short of an explicit military dictatorship. The joke is that a full dictatorship was probably ruled out as it would create problems that would prevent the army from further milking U.S. defense funding. Instead, the army is running a country where the price of essential goods continues to rise at meteoric rates. This is fostering severe hardships, increasing hunger, and fomenting the seeds of revolution. This also has increasingly led Pakistan further into an unhealthy strategic reliance on China for everything from COVID-19 vaccines to predatory financial assistance. The “honest, anti-corruption” leader, Imran Khan, has in recent times revealed the widespread strategies of fraud and corruption that his alliance has utilized in order to hold on to power and perpetuate instability.
During a hotly contested Senate chairmanship election, seven votes were recently thrown out, which would have provided the opposition a clear win. The official answer was that it was due to “incorrect ballot markings.” This occurred after another situation during recent national elections in which the intelligence bureaus disappeared polling officers as they stuffed ballot boxes. This occurred in the district of Daska and led to the election commission ordering another round of voting. Oh, and the security agencies locked up two members of the National Assembly in a shipping container before another crucial vote. The Pakistani security state is also levying false charges of financial corruption against political rivals. They are attempting to imprison, and some even claim assassinate, the likely next female prime minister, Maryam Nawaz.
This is a country that has been given more U.S. aid than South Korea but still ranks abysmally low in development terms. That’s largely because of military and intelligence community led corruption. For example, it is well known that military and intelligence leaders have been promising international arbitrators the release of government funding for unpaid debts only if they were to receive individual cuts of the pie, such as in the Broadsheet LLC case.
As a Pakistani American, I’m concerned. You should also be. We face an increasingly unstable, hungry, and economically needy nuclear power ally on the verge of collapse. The U.S. should stand squarely in support of election integrity.
Sabtain Ali works across U.S. and Pakistani politics. He is a former precinct committeeman for the Seminole County, Florida, GOP, and a supporter of the Pakistani Muslim League (Noon). He is a contributor at the Washington Examiner. He resides in Los Angeles, California, where he is working toward his lifelong goal of attending law school, being active in politics, and studying languages.
