Islamabad, Pakistan — It was a rare admission. In November 2022, then-army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa conceded that Pakistan’s military had meddled in politics for decades. In his farewell speech, General Bajwa promised that in the future, the army would steer clear of interfering in Pakistan’s democratic functioning.
Just 14 months later, that assurance appears to have evaporated. As Pakistan gears up for its February 8 general election, the military’s familiar shadow hovers over the process.
Observers have expressed concerns regarding the fairness of the polls with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of former Prime Minister Imran Khan denied its election symbol, many of its leaders — including Khan — behind bars and several others in hiding. The party’s members have to contest as independent candidates.
Journalists have spoken about a shroud of censorship imposed by the military, especially when it comes to reporting on Khan and the PTI. And there is little of the festive atmosphere that otherwise accompanies the campaign season.
At the heart of this subdued political climate is the military’s deep influence on politics, which has seen it rule Pakistan directly for more than three decades while controlling the levers of power from behind the scenes for much of the rest the country’s 77 years as an independent nation.
It’s a stranglehold that has resulted in a democracy where no prime minister has ever completed a five-year tenure, but three out of four military dictators managed to rule for more than nine years each.
As Pakistan votes in its 12th general election, one question above all lingers in the air, veteran politicians and analysts say: Can the country of 241 million people rectify the civilian-military imbalance, which has, to many critics, turned the latest vote into a farce?
‘Establishmentarian democracy’
Badar Alam, a Lahore-based journalist and editor, says the military believes it is central to Pakistan’s existence and remains the most dominant institution of the state with influence across non-military spheres, thanks in large part to its years of direct rule.
Asad Umar, a former federal minister and now a retired politician who was formerly associated with the PTI, says the military’s supremacy over the country’s institutions was borne out of the war against India in 1948, just a year after independence.
Then, just a decade later, the country was placed under martial law for the first time when General Ayub Khan, the army chief, took power in a coup. Since then, the military has consistently received more budgetary resources than any other government department.
“Once the military took over in 1958 and installed martial law, their ingress in the system became normalised in Pakistan,” Miftah Ismail, a two-time former finance minister and once part of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN), tells Al Jazeera.
As a new nation, Pakistan grappled with economic difficulties in its early years. Only the military was immune, giving it unmatched leverage in society.
“It is the only institution that Pakistan inherited from British India with its chain of command, logistics and even garrisons and munition fully intact,” Alam says.
Multiple wars with India — in 1948, 1965, 1971 and 1999 — further shored up the sense of the army’s centrality in Pakistan. It “has consistently received large funds from the state to expand and strengthen itself as a bulwark against a real or perceived Indian threat,” Alam says.
The influence accrued by the military in the initial years led to a political configuration in the country that political scientist Asma Faiz describes as “establishmentarian democracy”.
“Pakistan represents a neat example of a hybrid system of governance where the political class is divided,” Faiz, an associate professor of political science at Lahore University of Management Sciences, tells Al Jazeera.
In some ways, it’s a chicken and egg situation. On the one hand, “civilian governments have been less than effective in delivering to the people,” Faiz says.
On the other hand, Niloufer Siddiqui, author of the book Under the Gun: Political Parties and Violence in Pakistan, argues that while political parties are flawed, their failings are due to “frequent military interference”.
“This has made it more likely that political parties are dynastic, family-controlled, internally undemocratic and with limited local-level presence,” she tells Al Jazeera.
Siddiqui, who is also an assistant professor of political science at the University at Albany, State University of New York, pointed to the repeated inability of governments to complete their terms and the fact that elections are rarely held on schedule.
Next month’s general election was originally scheduled for November but was postponed after the Election Commission of Pakistan said it needed more time to draw up the borders of new constituencies following the 2023 census. And 2013 was the first time Pakistan witnessed a peaceful transfer of power between two elected governments.
But some veteran leaders said politicians were also to blame for being “too eager” to play along with the military.
“They were complicit in the whole thing from the beginning,” a former federal minister tells Al Jazeera on the condition of anonymity. “They cannot disassociate themselves. The way the system worked was that you could only access power by being in the good books of the military.”
Umar agrees and says politicians have often reached out to the military to unseat their opponents.
“The system itself is not averse to military intervention. Politicians don’t necessarily reach out asking for a takeover, but they try to ask for help to strengthen their position and intervene on their behalf to oust their rivals,” he says.
Ismail says politicians often behave like “small dictators” themselves when in power.
“Whether that attitude is due to a cult of personality or family dynasty, they haven’t shown Pakistani people that they are better than the military,” he says. “Politicians have received a lot of opportunities and have spurned those.”
‘Promise of democracy’
The opportunities have come in the shape of civilian governments in the late 1980s and the 1990s when Pakistan emerged from the 11-year-long dictatorship of General Zia-ul Haq, who died in a plane crash in August 1988.
However, for the subsequent 11 years, Pakistan went through four elections, all tainted with allegations of manipulation, rigging and military interference.
Nawaz Sharif is a three-time prime minister and is aiming to win the premiership for an unprecedented fourth time [Sohail Shahzad/EPA]
The Benazir Bhutto-led Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) won two elections (1988, 1993), while the Nawaz Sharif-led PMLN won the other two (1990, 1997).
None of the four governments was able to complete their tenure with both facing charges of massive corruption, which continue to haunt the two parties even today.
The last direct military coup in Pakistan occurred in October 1999 when then-army chief, General Pervez Musharraf, overthrew the PMLN government and sent Sharif, the prime minister, to jail.
While Musharraf’s rule lasted until 2008, the period also saw both the PPP and PMLN reaching out to each other and agreeing on what was called as a landmark document, the Charter of Democracy, in 2006.
Despite sharing an antagonistic relationship with each other earlier, Bhutto and Sharif agreed they would not “undermine each other through unconstitutional means” or solicit military support to dislodge a government or come into power.
When Bhutto was assassinated during a political rally in December 2007, the party was taken over by her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and the PPP swept to power in the 2008 elections with Sharif’s PMLN coming second.
Umar says that while the signing of the agreement was, conceptually, the right thing to do, the parties haven’t truly adhered to it.
“Instead, the perception among people was that this was an agreement between two groups that did this to protect each other from accountability instead of genuinely strengthening democracy and civilian supremacy,” Umar says.
The 2013 elections not only saw the government baton passed from the PPP to the PMLN but also the rise of the PTI, which was led by the charismatic Imran Khan, a former cricket superstar, a philanthropist and an emerging political force who rode a wave of popularity on his slogan of accountability.
The next five years saw the PTI’s support rise as Imran Khan targeted corruption under the PMLN, and the schism between the military and the government kept growing.
When Imran Khan won in 2018, his critics suggested he had been handpicked by the military to get rid of Sharif, who was first disqualified from the premiership in 2017 for not being “honest and truthful” and in July 2018, merely days before the elections, was sentenced to jail on charges of corruption. His daughter too was arrested, and his party faced a crackdown.
But eventually, tensions between Imran Khan and the military grew too. He and his government were removed from power in April 2022 through a parliamentary vote of no confidence, which Khan alleges was arranged by the military through a US-led conspiracy, charges which both Washington and the army deny.
The experiences of Sharif and now Khan underline why politicians in Pakistan often feel compelled to comply with the military’s wishes.
“If they don’t, they run the risk of facing consequences that can include imprisonments, trials, negative media campaigns and even murders and assassinations,” says Alam, the Lahore-based journalist.
Catharsis for military?
Yet by all accounts, Imran Khan and his party have faced a level of persecution unseen in many previous rounds of the political roulette that marks the military’s relations with civilian leaders.
Since his ouster, Khan has survived an assassination attempt and has been incarcerated since August as he faces charges of corruption and revealing state secrets, which he says are politically motivated.
Khan and his party are also facing a crackdown by state authorities since May 9 when the PTI leader was arrested from an Islamabad court.
Even though he was released from jail in fewer than 48 hours, his supporters went on a rampage across the country and were involved in rioting and targeting government buildings and military installations.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has been in jail since August on multiple charges [Shahzaib Akber/EPA]
With elections in fewer than two weeks, Siddiqui says Pakistani politicians must change their ways to “exit this hybrid regime system”.
“They must commit to a system of elections and a coherent set of rules by which they abide regardless of any short-term benefit they gain by flouting those rules,” she says. “For the most part, however, this has not happened. Parties continue to be motivated by immediate benefit at the expense of the long-term health of the democracy.”
Ismail, however, says the military cannot be ignored.
“I see no solution to our country’s problems without military involvement. I have repeatedly suggested about first admitting we failed our countrymen for the last 75 years and then agreeing on rules of the game,” he says. “If the PMLN comes to power, the onus is on them to try and get everybody to sit together, including PTI, to figure out a roadmap forward while including stakeholders such as military, courts and others.”
Umar, who left the PTI in November, also agreed with the need for political leaders to sit down together and set out the “rules of the game”, but he remained sceptical of it happening.
“It is essential for politicians to come together, but it appears there is no space for reconciliation right now. Is Nawaz Sharif willing to say, ‘I cannot run a genuine democratic system without Imran Khan’? Is Imran Khan willing to say the same?” the former minister asks.
“Unfortunately, right now, the answer is no.”
Despite the cloud that hangs over the credibility of the upcoming vote, some analysts believe the elections are essential for the country.
“The country needs an elected government to rise up to the occasion and meet monumental challenges it faces, and elections are just the beginning of this long journey,” Faiz says.
But for the former federal minister who requested he not be named, the upcoming polls are nothing more than a “joke”.
“This election has been rigged unlike any other in Pakistan’s history. It is nothing but a catharsis for the military for May 9 to have an election without Imran Khan and PTI,” he says. “That is their bottom line.”
NEW YORK (AP) — In a new video posted early Election Day, Beyoncé channels Pamela Anderson in the television program “Baywatch” – red one-piece swimsuit and all – and asks viewers to vote.
In the two-and-a-half-minute clip, set to most of “Bodyguard,” a four-minute cut from her 2024 country album “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé cosplays as Anderson’s character before concluding with a simple message, written in white text: “Happy Beylloween,” followed by “Vote.”
At a rally for Donald Trump in Pittsburgh on Monday night, the former president spoke dismissively about Beyoncé’s appearance at a Kamala Harris rally in Houston in October, drawing boos for the megastar from his supporters.
“Beyoncé would come in. Everyone’s expecting a couple of songs. There were no songs. There was no happiness,” Trump said.
She did not perform — unlike in 2016, when she performed at a presidential campaign rally for Hillary Clinton in Cleveland – but she endorsed Harris and gave a moving speech, initially joined onstage by her Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland.
“I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said.
“A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we’re not divided,” she said at the rally in Houston, her hometown.
“Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what’s possible with no ceilings, no limitations,” she continued. “We must vote, and we need you.”
Harris used the song in July during her first official public appearance as a presidential candidate at her campaign headquarters in Delaware. That same month, Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, publicly endorsed Harris for president.
Beyoncé gave permission to Harris to use the song, a campaign official who was granted anonymity to discuss private campaign operations confirmed to The Associated Press.
Outside of sports and a “Cold front coming down from Canada,” American news media only report on Canadian events that they believe are, or will be, influential to the US. Therefore, when Justin Trudeau’s announcement, having finally read the room, that Canada will be reducing the number of permanent residents admitted by more than 20 percent and temporary residents like skilled workers and college students will be cut by more than half made news south of the border, I knew the American media felt Trudeau’s about-face on immigration was newsworthy because many Americans would relate to Trudeau realizing Canada was accepting more immigrants than it could manage and are hoping their next POTUS will follow Trudeau’s playbook.
Canada, with lots of space and lacking convenient geographical ways for illegal immigrants to enter the country, though still many do, has a global reputation for being incredibly accepting of immigrants. On the surface, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver appear to be multicultural havens. However, as the saying goes, “Too much of a good thing is never good,” resulting in a sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, which you can almost taste in the air. A growing number of Canadians, regardless of their political affiliation, are blaming recent immigrants for causing the housing affordability crises, inflation, rise in crime and unemployment/stagnant wages.
Throughout history, populations have engulfed themselves in a tribal frenzy, a psychological state where people identify strongly with their own group, often leading to a ‘us versus them’ mentality. This has led to quick shifts from complacency to panic and finger-pointing at groups outside their tribe, a phenomenon that is not unique to any particular culture or time period.
My take on why the American news media found Trudeau’s blatantly obvious attempt to save his political career, balancing appeasement between the pitchfork crowd, who want a halt to immigration until Canada gets its house in order, and immigrant voters, who traditionally vote Liberal, newsworthy; the American news media, as do I, believe immigration fatigue is why Kamala Harris is going to lose on November 5th.
Because they frequently get the outcome wrong, I don’t take polls seriously. According to polls in 2014, Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives and Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals were in a dead heat in Ontario, yet Wynne won with more than twice as many seats. In the 2018 Quebec election, most polls had the Coalition Avenir Québec with a 1-to-5-point lead over the governing Liberals. The result: The Coalition Avenir Québec enjoyed a landslide victory, winning 74 of 125 seats. Then there’s how the 2016 US election polls showing Donald Trump didn’t have a chance of winning against Hillary Clinton were ridiculously way off, highlighting the importance of the election day poll and, applicable in this election as it was in 2016, not to discount ‘shy Trump supporters;’ voters who support Trump but are hesitant to express their views publicly due to social or political pressure.
My distrust in polls aside, polls indicate Harris is leading by a few points. One would think that Trump’s many over-the-top shenanigans, which would be entertaining were he not the POTUS or again seeking the Oval Office, would have him far down in the polls. Trump is toe-to-toe with Harris in the polls because his approach to the economy—middle-class Americans are nostalgic for the relatively strong economic performance during Trump’s first three years in office—and immigration, which Americans are hyper-focused on right now, appeals to many Americans. In his quest to win votes, Trump is doing what anyone seeking political office needs to do: telling the people what they want to hear, strategically using populism—populism that serves your best interests is good populism—to evoke emotional responses. Harris isn’t doing herself any favours, nor moving voters, by going the “But, but… the orange man is bad!” route, while Trump cultivates support from “weird” marginal voting groups.
To Harris’s credit, things could have fallen apart when Biden abruptly stepped aside. Instead, Harris quickly clinched the nomination and had a strong first few weeks, erasing the deficit Biden had given her. The Democratic convention was a success, as was her acceptance speech. Her performance at the September 10th debate with Donald Trump was first-rate.
Harris’ Achilles heel is she’s now making promises she could have made and implemented while VP, making immigration and the economy Harris’ liabilities, especially since she’s been sitting next to Biden, watching the US turn into the circus it has become. These liabilities, basically her only liabilities, negate her stance on abortion, democracy, healthcare, a long-winning issue for Democrats, and Trump’s character. All Harris has offered voters is “feel-good vibes” over substance. In contrast, Trump offers the tangible political tornado (read: steamroll the problems Americans are facing) many Americans seek. With Trump, there’s no doubt that change, admittedly in a messy fashion, will happen. If enough Americans believe the changes he’ll implement will benefit them and their country…
The case against Harris on immigration, at a time when there’s a huge global backlash to immigration, even as the American news media are pointing out, in famously immigrant-friendly Canada, is relatively straightforward: During the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration, illegal Southern border crossings increased significantly.
The words illegal immigration, to put it mildly, irks most Americans. On the legal immigration front, according to Forbes, most billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants. Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, to name three, have immigrants as CEOs. Immigrants, with tech skills and an entrepreneurial thirst, have kept America leading the world. I like to think that Americans and Canadians understand the best immigration policy is to strategically let enough of these immigrants in who’ll increase GDP and tax base and not rely on social programs. In other words, Americans and Canadians, and arguably citizens of European countries, expect their governments to be more strategic about immigration.
The days of the words on a bronze plaque mounted inside the Statue of Liberty pedestal’s lower level, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” are no longer tolerated. Americans only want immigrants who’ll benefit America.
Does Trump demagogue the immigration issue with xenophobic and racist tropes, many of which are outright lies, such as claiming Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets? Absolutely. However, such unhinged talk signals to Americans who are worried about the steady influx of illegal immigrants into their country that Trump can handle immigration so that it’s beneficial to the country as opposed to being an issue of economic stress.
In many ways, if polls are to be believed, Harris is paying the price for Biden and her lax policies early in their term. Yes, stimulus spending quickly rebuilt the job market, but at the cost of higher inflation. Loosen border policies at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment was increasing was a gross miscalculation, much like Trudeau’s immigration quota increase, and Biden indulging himself in running for re-election should never have happened.
If Trump wins, Democrats will proclaim that everyone is sexist, racist and misogynous, not to mention a likely White Supremacist, and for good measure, they’ll beat the “voter suppression” button. If Harris wins, Trump supporters will repeat voter fraud—since July, Elon Musk has tweeted on Twitter at least 22 times about voters being “imported” from abroad—being widespread.
Regardless of who wins tomorrow, Americans need to cool down; and give the divisive rhetoric a long overdue break. The right to an opinion belongs to everyone. Someone whose opinion differs from yours is not by default sexist, racist, a fascist or anything else; they simply disagree with you. Americans adopting the respectful mindset to agree to disagree would be the best thing they could do for the United States of America.
PHOENIX (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent proponent of debunked public health claims whom Donald Trump has promised to put in charge of health initiatives, said Saturday that Trump would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office if elected president.
Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.
Kennedy made the declaration Saturday on the social media platform X alongside a variety of claims about the heath effects of fluoride.
“On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” Kennedy wrote. Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, “want to Make America Healthy Again,” he added, repeating a phrase Trump often uses and links to Kennedy.
Trump told NBC News on Sunday that he had not spoken to Kennedy about fluoride yet, “but it sounds OK to me. You know it’s possible.”
The former president declined to say whether he would seek a Cabinet role for Kennedy, a job that would require Senate confirmation, but added, “He’s going to have a big role in the administration.”
Asked whether banning certain vaccines would be on the table, Trump said he would talk to Kennedy and others about that. Trump described Kennedy as “a very talented guy and has strong views.”
The sudden and unexpected weekend social media post evoked the chaotic policymaking that defined Trump’s White House tenure, when he would issue policy declarations on Twitter at virtually all hours. It also underscored the concerns many experts have about Kennedy, who has long promoted debunked theories about vaccine safety, having influence over U.S. public health.
In 1950, federal officials endorsed water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay, and continued to promote it even after fluoride toothpaste brands hit the market several years later. Though fluoride can come from a number of sources, drinking water is the main source for Americans, researchers say.
Officials lowered their recommendation for drinking water fluoride levels in 2015 to address a tooth condition called fluorosis, that can cause splotches on teeth and was becoming more common in U.S. kids.
In August, a federal agency determined “with moderate confidence” that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. The National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water.
A federal judge later cited that study in ordering the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in drinking water. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen cautioned that it’s not certain that the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing lower IQ in kids, but he concluded that mounting research points to an unreasonable risk that it could be. He ordered the EPA to take steps to lower that risk, but didn’t say what those measures should be.
In his X post Saturday, Kennedy tagged Michael Connett, the lead attorney representing the plaintiff in that lawsuit, the environmental advocacy group Food & Water Watch.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine organization has a lawsuit pending against news organizations including The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy is on leave from the group but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
What role Kennedy might hold if Trump wins on Tuesday remains unclear. Kennedy recently told NewsNation that Trump asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and some agencies under the Department of Agriculture.
But for now, the former independent presidential candidate has become one of Trump’s top surrogates. Trump frequently mentions having the support of Kennedy, a scion of a Democratic dynasty and the son of former Attorney General Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy traveled with Trump Friday and spoke at his rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Trump said Saturday that he told Kennedy: “You can work on food, you can work on anything you want” except oil policy.
“He wants health, he wants women’s health, he wants men’s health, he wants kids, he wants everything,” Trump added.
![Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan has been in jail since August 2023 on multiple charges. [Shahzaib Akber/EPA]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/SHAHZAIB-AKBER-1706482756.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C492)
