After the opposition party led by former prime minister Imran Khan was virtually eliminated from the contest by a court ruling over the weekend, the front-runner party in Pakistan’s postponed elections started running ads on Monday.
Allegations of pre-election manipulation have clouded Pakistan’s vote, which is scheduled for next month. According to commentators, the army establishment is planning Khan’s exclusion while supporting Nawaz Sharif, the country’s three-time prime leader.
Thousands of fans flocked to speeches by senior leaders as Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) party began its campaigning in the eastern city of Okara on Monday.
“Those who love this country can’t vote for anyone else but Nawaz Sharif,” said his daughter Maryam Nawaz Sharif, a vice-president of the PML-N party.
Meanwhile Khan — the nation’s most popular politician — is languishing in jail and barred from standing as a result of cases he claims have been confected by the establishment.
His Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party suffered a further setback on Saturday when the Supreme Court refused to allow them to use their cricket bat as an electoral emblem on ballot papers.
This effectively forces PTI candidates to run as independents and denies them access to a symbol that millions of voters without formal education need to identify party nominees on February 8.
The PTI used to have enormous street strength and could gather thousands of people for carnival-style protests all throughout the nation until the government launched a months-long crackdown.
On Sunday, a PTI gathering in the southern city of Karachi was disbanded by police who arrested the organisers.
The poll will take place amid increasing militant attacks and an economic nosedive that has ravaged the rupee and sent the cost-of-living soaring.
The election commission postponed the poll, which was originally scheduled for November, so that constituencies could be redrew following a new census.
According to analysts, the delay has benefited the influential army establishment, which is thought to be the main planners of a current crackdown that is harming Khan and the PTI’s chances.
“It’s going to be a controversial election: one party sees it as a complete negation of democracy,” Tufts University history professor Ayesha Jalal told AFP.
Nawaz Sharif did not appear at Monday’s rally and has been largely absent from the public eye since returning from self-imposed exile in Britain late last year.
Since then the 74-year-old last ousted in 2017 has seen the myriad corruption cases plaguing him dissolve in the courts, an apparent sign of his reformed relationship with the army establishment.
Throughout Pakistan’s history, the military has held direct control over the country and continues to have significant influence behind the scenes.
Former cricket star Khan accuses the army of starting a wave of legal battles that have plagued him since he was removed from office in 2022 due to a no-confidence vote. Khan claims the cases were started to stop Khan from ever rising to power.
Due to a conviction for graft, he is presently incarcerated and is not eligible to run for office.
Despite a narrowing margin, a Gallup Pakistan poll taken in December showed 71-year-old Khan still has a five-point lead over Sharif in approval ratings.
“Khan thinks that just because he’s ‘popular’ he deserves the key to the helm of state authority,” said history professor Jalal.
“Unfortunately in Pakistan it’s not just popularity that counts, it’s your acceptability to a security-conscious establishment.”
