News Mondays - Clément Guntern
On July 25 this year, Pakistan's parliamentary elections will be held. At first glance, this may seem trivial. However, never before in this country of 200 million inhabitants at the gateway to Afghanistan have two successive civilian governments succeeded one another. At a time when at least fifteen heads of state have been deposed by the powerful army since 1947, has a semblance of stability returned to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan?
In view of the current legislative campaign, talk of liberal democracy seems to be a misnomer. Indeed, the Pakistani army and secret services, extremely powerful bodies in Pakistani political life, have waged a campaign of terror among critics of the military establishment. Several journalists were kidnapped, including Gul Bukhari, a leading critic of the army in the Pakistani press. On social networks, too, censorship is enforced; any sympathy for the ruling civilian party is controlled and branded by the army as ’anti-state activities«. What's more, as the July 25 deadline approaches, censorship is intensifying on social networks and in the press. The English-language newspaper Dawn paid the price when it was banned for ethical violations after publishing an interview with the deposed former prime minister in which he criticized the military. Yet these pressures on democratic life have always been felt in Pakistan. The difference lies in the fact that repression has become more visible in recent times. As long as a kind of dynastic politics remains in Pakistan, the military will continue to play an important role in the country.
This election, as well as being important for Pakistan's internal stability, will influence decision-making throughout the region. All the more so as this year and in 2019, elections will be held in the USA, India and Afghanistan, the three other players in the region. Since the start of his term, President Trump has made harsh remarks about the Islamic Republic. The US president accuses it of playing a double game with the Taliban: on the one hand, Pakistan receives US subsidies (albeit reduced from three billion to one billion), and on the other, Islamabad supports the Afghan Taliban. Trump has talked of imposing sanctions to encourage the Pakistanis to cooperate with him in Afghanistan. According to the Pakistani military, such measures would not destabilize the country; on the contrary, they would strengthen the army in the role it is playing, that of guarantor of independence in the face of an international conspiracy. The greatest danger for Islamabad lies not in American threats, nor even in its great animosity with its Indian neighbor, but in the fight against the Islamists.
If Pakistan finds itself fighting Islamists both within its own borders and across the border in Afghanistan, it's because the authorities have instrumentalized these movements. Whether during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, or in the Indian part of the disputed Kashmir region, Islamabad supported Islamist factions. This support had a dual purpose: to counter India and to gain friendly power in Afghanistan. Along its western border, Pakistan has lost its grip on the Pakistani Taliban, who are becoming more radical in their opposition to the national army.
The regional situation of the fight against Islamism, and the US coalition with the Afghan government and India, has reinforced the feeling of conspiracy. Thus, a crucial moment for the future of Pakistan, such as these parliamentary elections, risks being taken over by the army, which feels threatened in its national domination. The pre-election repression is certainly a symptom of this. Democracy, in every country in the world, unfortunately remains a more than fragile asset.
Write to the author : clement.guntern@legardlibre.com
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