This past Saturday, March 16, 2013 marked an extraordinary moment in Pakistan’s history, as this is the first time that a civilian government has served its entire five-year term (from 2008 to 2013). And, for the first time in its history, the Pakistani military appears both unwilling and unable to mount a coup against any civilian government. The military has mounted four coups since Pakistan’s independence in 1947. Around six weeks from now, in May, Pakistanis will go again to the polls to elect a new civilian government for a five-year term, and there is now a good prospect for continued, uninterrupted civilian government until at least 2018.
While Pakistan’s problems are many—in particular its weak economy, tiny tax base, chronic energy shortages and often-feckless leadership—there are some underlying strengths of its institutions that are too often overlooked. Pakistan may have a largely ineffectual state, but it has a vibrant civil society. As a result of this strong civil society, Pakistan had its version of the Arab Spring long before the wave of demands for accountable governments emerged in the Middle East. It was, after all, a movement of thousands of lawyers taking to the streets protesting the sacking of the Supreme Court chief justice by the military dictator Pervez Musharraf in 2007 that helped to dislodge Musharraf from power.[1]
Pakistan also has a vibrant media. A decade ago, there was only Pakistan TV, which featured leaden government propaganda. Now there are dozens of news channels:[2] many of them are conspiracist and anti-American, but many of them are also anti-Taliban and pro-democracy.
In the past year or so, the Supreme Court has taken on the ISI, Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency, successfully demanding that the organization produce prisoners who had disappeared for years.[3]
In November 2011, Pakistan agreed to a pact with long-time rival India granting India "most favored nation" trading status;[4] something that would have been unimaginable a few years back. This important development was sanctioned by Pakistan's powerful army, which is a significant player in the country's economy and understands that one way out of Pakistan's economic mess is to hitch itself to India's much larger economy.
Despite the visibility of the hardline religious parties on the streets of Pakistan, in the voting booth, these parties have recently fared very poorly. A coalition of pro-Taliban religious parties known as the MMA secured control of two of Pakistan's four provinces in an election in 2002 and 11% of the votes to the National Assembly. But the MMA garnered only a piddling 2% of the vote in the 2008 election.[5] The showing of the pro-Taliban religious parties in the May 2013 election is likely to be equally unimpressive.
In terms of Pakistan’s long term health and stability, the fact that the country is poised to enter into a unprecedented era of lengthy civilian rule will help erode the Pakistani military’s present position as having uncontested supremacy in all matters that relate to the country’s national security, in particular its relations with India and with Afghanistan. The military has backed armed proxies in both India and Afghanistan to maintain its perceived interests in these countries. A more confident civilian Pakistani government is over time less likely to support these insurgent and terrorist groups.
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[1] This section draws upon Peter Bergen, “What’s Working in Pakistan,” CNN, 7/23/2012. http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/23/opinion/bergen-pakistan
[2] Adam Ellick, “Pakistan’s Opinionated Media Landscape,” New York Times, 5/26/2010. http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/pakistans-opinionated-media-landscape/
[3] Declan Walsh, “Court Challenges Put Unusual Spotlight on Pakistani Spy Agency,” New York Times, 2/6/2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/world/asia/isi-in-pakistan-faces-court-cases.html?pagewanted=all
[4] Zeeshan Haider, “Pakistan grants India Most Favoured Nation trade status,” Reuters, 11/2/2011.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/02/us-pakistan-india-trade-idUSTRE7A13VE20111102
[5] K. Alan Kronstadt, Pakistan’s 2008 Elections: Results and Implications for U.S. Policy, Congressional Research Service, 4/9/2008.
