Pakistan’s 77th independence day celebrations found the country under a caretaker government led by Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, with the national and provincial assemblies dissolved on August 9 at the end of their five-year term. These steps are all part of the constitutionally mandated process ahead of the general elections scheduled for late 2023, although this date could slip to early 2024.
Optimists might point to the regularity of internationally observed elections in Pakistan since 2008, following the triumph of the Lawyers’ Movement over the late Gen Pervez Musharraf. They might argue that parliament, the courts and a civilian executive have remained in place ever since – despite severe economic, political and security crises. These claims looked credible on the eve of the 2013 elections, seemed doubtful before the 2018 vote and are entirely fantastic in 2023.
This period has seen almost every major democratic institution hollowed out to accommodate the so-called “hybrid” civil-military regime, leaving little more than empty procedure in its place. Worse still, it is impossible to cleanly distinguish between the repressed and repressor within the political classes. Most major parties have colluded with the army at some point over the past five years to suppress their rivals.
The crackdown on the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, which included Imran Khan’s arrest, has not provoked the expected explosion on the streets. The military has succeeded in reinforcing internal discipline internally, and it has signalled externally that it will not tolerate opposition to its dismantling of the PTI. For the first time in decades, Pakistani elites (among them a number of senior retired army officers) are facing the kinds of coercive pressures that had been previously reserved for dissidents, ethnic separatists and religious extremists.
The vast ballet being thrown into motion to shape the outcome of the next elections is probably the best illustration of the hybrid regime’s damaging relationship with democracy. The Intercept news website’s publication of a leaked “cypher” from Pakistan’s Foreign Office detailing a meeting between the country’s ambassador in Washington and a senior US State Department official has re-ignited a widely held conviction that Mr Khan was pushed out under American pressure.
Pakistan’s trend-line is moving the country towards a form of managed democracy where multi-party elections are a mix of theatre and ritual
However, the meeting took place long after members of Mr Khan’s coalition had defected to the opposition and the no-confidence vote had been called; it is unclear from the text what, if any, role the US had in any of the events. It provides an inside peek into the extent of the disconnection between the elected government and other layers of the state.
Mr Khan’s conviction this month for corruption may have rested on compelling evidence, but it was certainly unusually speedy. Even more significant than the three-year prison sentence was the five-year ban from elected office. Of course, nothing in Pakistan’s politics is final. Several former prime ministers and presidents have seen full legal rehabilitation with charges withdrawn and convictions overturned as part of a broader political deal with the system’s masters.
But for now, the courts and prison system are doubling down by cancelling Mr Khan’s bail, and restricting access to his lawyers, while other members of the PTI have been treated more leniently. This suggests the intention here is to ensure that the charismatic Mr Khan is unable to participate in his party’s election campaign.
But the measures taken extend far beyond Mr Khan’s legal issues. A census has been ordered ahead of the elections (a similar exercise was carried out in 2017 ahead of polls), and now, after the lengthy tabulation of results, constituency boundaries will have to be redrawn in light of this new snapshot of the country’s population distribution. This is likely to push back the elections from the last quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024.
It is suspected that the army wants the delay to allow the benefits of the IMF’s latest bailout to be felt in the economy, easing the public’s discontent ahead of the vote. Much of the military’s confidence in its ability to manage the challenges stems from the nature of the caretaker government, which has been granted expanded economic powers by the outgoing parliament. The idea is that technocrats, free from populist pressures, will be able to manage in a way that improves macro-economic stability, as well as lenders’ confidence.
Mr Kakar’s selection as caretaker Prime Minister caught many by surprise because of the degree to which it departs from precedent. Pakistan’s seven interim administrations have been led either by very senior politicians recognised for their independence, or by members of the senior judiciary. Mr Kakar is neither.
He is a junior senator from Balochistan who has developed a reputation over the past five years as a willing and enthusiastic representative of the security state’s interests in his province’s political scene. Most strikingly, Mr Kakar does not appear to have been proposed for the job by either the outgoing prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, or the leader of the opposition, Raja Riaz Khan, as is the norm.
This lack of consensus behind the choice of prime minister is especially noteworthy, given what we have seen elsewhere. The Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinces have been under caretaker governments since early 2023 when their PTI governments dissolved the assemblies in a failed attempt to trigger early elections. These interim administrations have been exceptionally responsive to military interests, and Sindh and Balochistan are likely to be no different now that they are under caretaker administrations as well.
Pakistan’s trend-line is moving the country towards a form of managed democracy where multi-party elections are a mix of theatre and ritual, and where elected office is a mix of ceremony and profit.
If democratic legitimacy continues to be sapped from the system, the results are likely to be ever greater unpredictability and ungovernability as the general public increasingly chooses to act on its own, unconstrained by systemic norms.
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'Young girls thinking of big ideas'
Words come easy for aspiring writer Afra Al Muhairb. The business side of books, on the other hand, is entirely foreign to the 16-year-old Emirati. So, she followed her father’s advice and enroled in the Abu Dhabi Education Council’s summer entrepreneurship course at Abu Dhabi University hoping to pick up a few new skills.
“Most of us have this dream of opening a business,” said Afra, referring to her peers are “young girls thinking of big ideas.”
In the three-week class, pupils are challenged to come up with a business and develop an operational and marketing plan to support their idea. But, the learning goes far beyond sales and branding, said teacher Sonia Elhaj.
“It’s not only about starting up a business, it’s all the meta skills that goes with it -- building self confidence, communication,” said Ms Elhaj. “It’s a way to coach them and to harness ideas and to allow them to be creative. They are really hungry to do this and be heard. They are so happy to be actually doing something, to be engaged in creating something new, not only sitting and listening and getting new information and new knowledge. Now they are applying that knowledge.”
Afra’s team decided to focus their business idea on a restaurant modelled after the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Each level would have a different international cuisine and all the meat would be halal. The pupils thought of this after discussing a common problem they face when travelling abroad.
“Sometimes we find the struggle of finding halal food, so we just eat fish and cheese, so it’s hard for us to spend 20 days with fish and cheese,” said Afra. “So we made this tower so every person who comes – from Africa, from America – they will find the right food to eat.”
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Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
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Three-day coronation
Royal purification
The entire coronation ceremony extends over three days from May 4-6, but Saturday is the one to watch. At the time of 10:09am the royal purification ceremony begins. Wearing a white robe, the king will enter a pavilion at the Grand Palace, where he will be doused in sacred water from five rivers and four ponds in Thailand. In the distant past water was collected from specific rivers in India, reflecting the influential blend of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology on the coronation. Hindu Brahmins and the country's most senior Buddhist monks will be present. Coronation practices can be traced back thousands of years to ancient India.
The crown
Not long after royal purification rites, the king proceeds to the Baisal Daksin Throne Hall where he receives sacred water from eight directions. Symbolically that means he has received legitimacy from all directions of the kingdom. He ascends the Bhadrapitha Throne, where in regal robes he sits under a Nine-Tiered Umbrella of State. Brahmins will hand the monarch the royal regalia, including a wooden sceptre inlaid with gold, a precious stone-encrusted sword believed to have been found in a lake in northern Cambodia, slippers, and a whisk made from yak's hair.
The Great Crown of Victory is the centrepiece. Tiered, gold and weighing 7.3 kilograms, it has a diamond from India at the top. Vajiralongkorn will personally place the crown on his own head and then issues his first royal command.
The audience
On Saturday afternoon, the newly-crowned king is set to grant a "grand audience" to members of the royal family, the privy council, the cabinet and senior officials. Two hours later the king will visit the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the most sacred space in Thailand, which on normal days is thronged with tourists. He then symbolically moves into the Royal Residence.
The procession
The main element of Sunday's ceremonies, streets across Bangkok's historic heart have been blocked off in preparation for this moment. The king will sit on a royal palanquin carried by soldiers dressed in colourful traditional garb. A 21-gun salute will start the procession. Some 200,000 people are expected to line the seven-kilometre route around the city.
Meet the people
On the last day of the ceremony Rama X will appear on the balcony of Suddhaisavarya Prasad Hall in the Grand Palace at 4:30pm "to receive the good wishes of the people". An hour later, diplomats will be given an audience at the Grand Palace. This is the only time during the ceremony that representatives of foreign governments will greet the king.
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Thing you will miss most about the UAE: My friends and family, Formula 1, having Friday's off, desert adventures, and Arabic culture and people
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The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
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