Former PM Imran Khan's high-stakes election gamble adding to Pakistan's instability, analysts say

Already facing an economic crisis and a resurgence in terrorist attacks from Taliban insurgents, Pakistan is now facing the unenviable prospect of holding six months of staggered elections, which will only increase the political instability in the country and unnerve creditors, analysts said.

The polls are needed following the dissolution of two of the country's four provincial assemblies and mass opposition resignations from the National Assembly.

Ex-prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and its allies pulled the plug on its governments in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) provinces on Saturday and Tuesday respectively, constitutionally necessitating provincial assembly polls to be held there by late April.

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The moves are part of Khan's plan to force a snap general election ahead of schedule in October.

The PTI and its allies have boycotted the National Assembly since their administration lost a vote of no confidence in April.

In a television interview on Saturday, Khan hinted at a possible PTI return to the National Assembly to test the slim majority of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's increasingly shaky multiparty coalition.

Khan was disqualified in October by Pakistan's election commission from holding public office for five years for being involved in corrupt practices, after it found he made false statements about the sale of official presents received as prime minister.

Analysts previously speculated the PTI would return to the National Assembly in part to support a constitutional amendment to repeal the clause under which Khan and ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz's brother, have been disqualified from contesting elections.

National Assembly speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf on Tuesday belatedly accepted the resignations of 35 PTI MPs submitted last April, ensuring the survival of Sharif's administration for the time being.

This means that by-elections for those parliamentary seats will have to be scheduled alongside polls in two provinces which are home to about two-thirds of Pakistan's estimated 225 million citizens.

The dissolution of the Punjab and KP assemblies "adds to political uncertainty, but it does not necessarily mean" that Sharif's coalition has to hold early national elections, said Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the US and Sri Lanka.

Khan "generates headlines by contradictory actions" such as mass National Assembly resignations and the dissolution of assemblies in provinces controlled by his party, but "he lacks a strategy to force the government's hand", said Haqqani, who is currently a scholar at Washington's Hudson Institute and the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi.

Sharif's administration would like to frustrate Khan by delaying general elections until the last minute, "making him wander on the roads hoping his angry narrative would dissipate over time," said Aamir Ghauri, a political analyst and senior newspaper editor based in Islamabad.

But the polarised situation is alarming for Pakistan's major international partners and creditors China, the United States and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the analysts said.

The State Bank of Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves plunged to a historic low of US$4.3 billion on January 6 - sufficient only to finance three weeks of imports - because talks with the IMF over the release of funds under a US$7 billion provision agreed upon in 2019 have stalled.

To stave off a Sri Lanka-like default, Pakistan earlier this month persuaded Saudi Arabia and the UAE to roll over maturing loans and central bank deposits totalling US$5 billion, and to boost their financial support to US$8 billion.

Pakistan's largest bilateral creditor China agreed in November to refinance US$7.7 billion in sovereign and commercial loans, and increase a currency swap facility by about US$1.45 billion.

"Seeing nuclear-armed Pakistan in such dire financial straits should make friends, frenemies and enemies alike worried," Ghauri said.

Pakistan's international friends, like its powerful military, want its political leadership to focus on stabilising the economy, the analysts said.

"They all seem concerned by the endlessly divisive politics that most observers attribute to Imran Khan's hard line populism against all political forces and the establishment," Haqqani said.

Instability arising from the dissolution of the two provincial assemblies and mass resignations of opposition MPs from the National Assembly could prompt a back-door intervention by the military, analysts said.

Often referred to as "the establishment", the army's high command is still widely seen as the ultimate arbiter of Pakistan's politics, despite publicly declaring an end to its dominant historical role last year.

Pakistan's military is also focused on the forthcoming launch of a major counterterrorism offensive against Taliban insurgents in KP province and separatist rebels in Balochistan, home to the Chinese-operated port of Gwadar.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for 23 terrorist attacks in the first half of January, in which 21 security personnel were killed and 57 wounded.

"There is no guarantee that early elections will end Pakistan's instability. The only solution is compromise among major parties which is unacceptable to Imran Khan," Haqqani said.

If the Pakistani establishment does intervene, "it will likely be to force a compromise settlement that ends polarisation," Haqqani said.

But the military is reluctant to pressure the government for an early general election instead of a staggered one because it would "not only pitch the establishment against all major political forces in the country, it would spoil their recently adopted narrative of being apolitical," Ghauri said.

Pakistan is thus likely to continue to be mired in political confrontation and resulting instability "until the basic norms of democracy are embraced by everyone", Haqqani said.

Pakistan is "not there yet and is unlikely to get there in 2023", he said.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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