Pakistan's Political Earthquake

Grand Tamasha

Last Thursday, voters in Pakistan went to the polls in the country’s first general elections since the July 2018 election that brought former prime minister Imran Khan to power. In 2022, Khan was ousted in an unprecedented no confidence vote and now finds himself behind bars.

In the months before the election, Khan’s political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), was repressed with party members jailed, harassed, and eventually forced to contest the 2024 elections as independents. Pakistan’s powerful military was widely seen as the guiding force behind these moves. But the election results appear to have caught the military—and perhaps many Pakistanis—by surprise.

At last count, PTI-backed independent candidates emerged as the single largest party, with allegations of vote rigging rampant. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s traditional political heavyweights are engaged in a furious effort to form a coalition government.

To talk about the election, and what it means for Pakistan and the region, Milan is joined on the show this week by Zoha Waseem. Zoha is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick and author of Insecure Guardians: Enforcement, Encounters and Everyday Policing in Postcolonial Karachi.

Milan and Zoha discuss the tumultuous months leading up to the contested polls, the reasons for the PTI’s surprise showing, and what comes next. Plus, the two discuss what these election results mean for India-Pakistan relations.

Episode notes:

1. “South Asia’s Economic Turmoil (with Ben Parkin),” Grand Tamasha, September 21, 2022.

2. “Pakistan After Imran Khan (with Aqil Shah),” Grand Tamasha, May 4, 2022.

3. Zoha Waseem, “A House Divided: Karachi’s Politics Remain in Flux,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 3, 2022.