Opposition's march on Islamabad signals increasing political instability for Nawaz Sharif's government in Pakistan

Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) party, which advocates reform of the current political setup, won the second-highest number of votes and the third-highest number of seats in the May 2013 general election. However, Khan has alleged that his party could have emerged with as many as 40 more parliamentary seats if there had not been electoral fraud propagated by the caretaker government to favour Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), especially in Punjab, the country's largest province. Khan has alleged a conspiracy involving Sharif, the Election Commission of Pakistan, the caretaker government, and the Supreme Court under former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Although Khan has been making these allegations since 2013, there has been a new impetus behind his movement over the past six weeks, raising the probability of a return to the chronic political instability that had beleaguered the previous Pakistan People's Party (PPP) government in 2008–13, under former president Asif Ali Zardari. Even if the PML-N government survives the march on Islamabad, it is likely to face an extended period of political instability in the one-year outlook.

Hidden hand?

IHS's sources indicate that this sudden pressure on the PML-N government has come as a result of the army, which has proved to be a key player in Pakistan's politics and provided covert backing to opposition leaders in the past, such as Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri. Qadri, who is based in Canada, runs a religious organisation, Minhajul-ul-Quran International, that is involved in social work in Pakistan. In July 2014, an attempt by the Lahore police to clear barricades outside Qadri's residence led to fighting between his supporters and police, leading to the death of 12 of his followers. The incident has further emboldened Qadri in advocating for the overthrow of the PML-N government and has put federal and Punjab governments (with Sharif's brother Shahbaz Sharif being the Chief Minister of Punjab) on the defensive. In January 2013, Qadri threatened to overthrow the PPP government before the election by gathering his supporters for a several-day sit-down in Islamabad. Ultimately, Qadri backed down, and the election was held as scheduled, resulting in a victory for Nawaz Sharif. At the time, Qadri's sudden entry into politics and mass mobilisation of supporters were viewed as an indicator of support from the military establishment.

Despite having started his tenure with a positive relationship with the army, Sharif has recently had some differences with the military establishment. Specifically, according to our sources, the army leadership is unhappy with Sharif's position on amnesty for former president Pervez Musharraf. The army, and in particular army chief General Raheel Shareef, perceives that Nawaz Sharif reneged on a deal to allow Musharraf to leave the country, rather than pursuing criminal cases against him in court. The army also views Sharif's attempts at peace talks with the militant group Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as having been a waste of time and primarily driven by his desire to ensure that there was no blowback from the TTP in his home province of Punjab.

The army worked hard over the past six years to restore its image, which had been damaged during Musharraf's tenure. The launching of a military offensive in Waziristan, and its apparent success, has once again portrayed the army in a positive light. Images of General Shareef celebrating Eid al-Fitr with frontline troops, while the prime minister was in Saudi Arabia, have also had a negative impact on the government. The media, which have been largely independent over the past few years, have also toned down any criticism of the army following the institution's sharp reaction to allegations by Geo TV, the country's largest independent channel, that Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was responsible for the attempted assassination of the channel's most popular anchor Hamid Mir, due to his regular criticism of the military, back in April 2014. Subsequently, Geo TV's licence was suspended for a few days, but even on its resumption, cable operators and advertisers refused to do business with it, allegedly due to pressure exerted by ISI. Our sources claim that Geo TV's confrontation has driven the channel to the verge of bankruptcy.

Outlook and implications

The PML-N government faces two potential scenarios in the coming days and weeks. Any heavy-handed attempts to abort Khan and Qadri's march on Islamabad, which are being planned, with police officers in Punjab being instructed to block opposition convoys headed to the capital, are likely to be resisted violently by opposition supporters. Any civilian casualties caused by such fighting will probably further incite the opposition to try and besiege government buildings, such as the National Assembly, the federal secretariat, and the Prime Minister's House in Islamabad, raising risks of collateral damage to commercial buildings situated in or near the government zone. This will also increase pressure on Sharif to resign, especially if the army refuses to aid civilian law-enforcement agencies in quelling the unrest.

Alternately, even if the government is able to avoid widespread bloodshed on 14 August and allows some measure of protests in Islamabad, it is likely to be weakened in the one-year outlook. The present political crisis is already distracting the prime minister and his key advisors from their previous focus on economic development. If the current conflagration turns into an elongated political standoff, or if the army chooses to assert pressure on the government through engineering successive crises, delays are likely in the implementation of the government's economic agenda. In particular, the government's ambitious privatisation plans for various state-owned enterprises, such as Pakistan International Airlines and the Pakistan Steel Mills, will almost certainly have to be delayed. Similarly, Sharif's plans for expanding trade ties with India would also be pushed back. Although it is unlikely that the military wants to directly overthrow the government in a coup, it is likely that they will want to keep the government off balance, ensuring that Sharif does not interfere at all, and toes the army's position in key policy areas such as foreign affairs, defence, and internal security.