PAKISTAN ELECTIONS
Despite crises, polls dominated by personalities
Pakistan goes to the polls tomorrow with the jailing of popular former prime minister Imran Khan, the winner of the last national election, dominating headlines despite an economic crisis and other woes threatening the nuclear-armed country.
The South Asian nation of 241 million people is reeling from decades-high inflation and an economy that has come to a grinding halt as it navigates a tough International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout programme.
Islamist militancy is on the rise and relations with three neighbours - India, Afghanistan and Iran - are frayed. But these matters have been mostly absent from the election fray, in which the parties of Khan and Nawaz Sharif, another former prime minister, are the main rivals.
"This election cycle has had little discussion of issues," said Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the US, currently a scholar at Washington's Hudson Institute. "It has been a campaign dominated by personalities."
There seems to be a clash of victimhood. Nawaz Sharif having been victimized from 2017 until 2022 and Imran Khan claiming victimhood after that.
Millions of supporters of the jailed Khan are looking to rally behind him despite what they call a military-backed crackdown on him and his party.
The military wields enormous power in Pakistan but maintains it does not interfere in politics. Analysts say Sharif is being backed by the generals this time, after they preferred Khan at the last election in 2018.
Both former prime ministers say they were ousted at the behest of the military, which it denies."There seems to be a clash of victimhood," said Haqqani. "Nawaz Sharif having been victimized from 2017 until 2022 and Imran Khan claiming victimhood after that."
Sharif's party ran the full page advertisements on front pages of major newspapers hours before campaigning ended declaring him "the PM".