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Pakistan Elections:
Commuters ride past banners of Pakistan’s political parties in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Photographer: Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images
Pakistan’s army has long exerted an influence over politics and the economy that no elected leader has successfully challenged. Imran Khan was ousted as prime minister in 2022 after falling out with the generals and losing a no-confidence vote. His imprisonment in 2023 on corruption charges prevents him from contesting a general election on Thursday, and the army leadership appears to favor another former premier, Nawaz Sharif, to replace him. But former cricket star Khan remains the most popular politician in the country of 240 million people. With soaring living costs and high unemployment galvanizing support for Khan’s political allies, the vote is shaping up to be a test of Pakistan’s hybrid democracy.
It has been 15 years since Pervez Musharraf stepped down as the last military ruler, but the armed forces — particularly the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, which oversees internal security — are still very much in power in the nuclear-armed nation, enjoying outsized influence over security and foreign policy. They have entrenched positions in the economy through land ownership and shareholdings in large corporations. Both Sharif and Khan are widely seen as having benefited from army patronage to win elections, and were ejected from office after losing it. The country has seen three successful military coups, and only twice since the creation of Pakistan in 1947 has one civilian administration peacefully transferred power to another.

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