ISLAMABAD: A former prime minister and arguably the country’s most popular politician is behind bars. His party says it is facing a state-backed crackdown. Multiple electoral nominees backed by him have seen their candidatures rejected by the Election Commission of Pakistan. And another political big-wig, previously imprisoned and until recently in exile, has returned to political activities in the country with what is widely believed to be the backing of the all-powerful military. 
This is the background against which millions of Pakistanis are going out to vote today, Thursday: amid accusations of a widespread military-backed and state-sanctioned crackdown on the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has been in jail since August over a raft of charges, including corruption. Hundreds of his supporters, party members and key aides are under arrest or have gone underground or deserted their leader. 
The military, which has for decades held sway over Pakistan’s politics, denies the charges and the caretaker government overseeing the elections says it has no favorites. 
But rigging allegations are nothing new in Pakistan where independent observers and political leaders say most elections have been tainted to some degree across the decades. 
Pakistan, which gained independence from Britain in 1947, held its first general elections on Dec. 2, 1970 with East Pakistani leader Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman’s Awami Muslim League (AML) party emerging as the winner. However, military ruler and President Yahya Khan and Sheikh’s main rival Zulfikar Ali Bhutto did not want a party from East Pakistan in the federal government, leading to a delay in the inauguration of the National Assembly. Unrest followed and deteriorated into a civil war that led to the secession of the east wing of the country and the creation of the independent state of Bangladesh in March 1971.
Since then, the results of almost all elections in present-day Pakistan have been questioned by political leaders, while no political party has ever been able to secure two consecutive terms, nor has a prime minister completed a full five-year term in office.
HISTORY OF RIGGING ALLEGATIONS
Pakistan’s second general election in 1977 is believed to have been rigged by Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party while the next one in 1985 was organized under the military rule of Gen Zia-ul-Haq on a nonpartisan basis, with most of the elected MNAs being supporters of the army regime. General elections in 1988 once again came with allegations of rigging against the PPP and Bhutto’s daughter Benazir Bhutto became the first woman elected to head a democratic government in a Muslim-majority country.
General elections in October 1990, a contest between the People’s Democratic Alliance led by the PPP against the conservative nine-party Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) alliance headed by Nawaz Sharif, ended with a surprise victory for the IJI. The Supreme Court of Pakistan would later rule that two army generals — Mirza Aslam Baig and Asad Durrani — along with President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, had provided financial assistance to favored parties, thereby manipulating the vote to deliberately weaken the mandate of the Pakistan Peoples Party. 
Shairif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party says the 1993 election, which saw the PPP emerge victorious and began a second prime ministerial term for Benazir, was rigged in favor of the PPP. A few years later, Benazir alleged that election officials had rigged the 1997 election, in which the PML-N won a landslide victory. The 2002 elections were held under the military rule of General Pervez Musharraf, with several restrictions imposed on the PPP and PML-N parties and both Benazir and Sharif in exile.
The 2008 elections, won by the the PPP, took place against the background of several attacks targeting leftist politicians and political rallies, while Khan and his PTI decried rigging of the 2013 polls and in 2014 organized a nearly four-month long sit-in in the Pakistani capital against what they called the illegal government of the PML-N.
Finally, the last election, in 2018, was marked by widespread allegations of rigging by the military to tilt the vote in favor of Khan, who would be sworn in as prime minister and rule until 2022. The military has denied it interfered in the vote. 
METHODS OF RIGGING
In Pakistan, according to political analyst Ahmed Ejaz, three methods of rigging have been adopted: pre-poll, as well as manipulation on polling day and after voting. Pre-poll rigging, he argued, had been the “most effective method” and would most likely affect the results of the upcoming elections also. 
“The establishment has been [pre]rigging the elections in various ways to make their favored party successful,” he said. 
Methods include allegations of corruption against rivals, forcing candidates to switch parties, creating artificial political alliances, spreading negative propaganda and creating the narrative of good and bad political leaders.
“These rigging methods are used before elections … to bring its favorite political parties to power,” Ejaz added. 
Tahir Malik, an assistant professor of International Politics at the National University of Modern Languages (NUML), attributed the recurring problem of election irregularities to a lack of consensus among stake-holders including civilian politicians, the absence of an independent election commission, and the model of “political exclusion” in which the military establishment created favorable conditions for its favored candidates and parties. 
“That exclusion takes place through the law as well as the process, for instance the [university] graduation condition [for candidates] was introduced [by Musharraf ahead of 2002 elections] and then there were disqualifications [of politicians by the election commission or the courts],” he said.
Election riggings, or accusations of it, overshadow Pakistan’s next election also.
Sarwar Bari, National Coordinator at the not-for profit Pattan Development Organization, said the 2024 election was peculiar in a number of ways and one was the “very transparent” nature of the manipulation and intimidation, referring to the crackdown against the PTI and dozens of legal cases against Khan and three jail sentences of three, ten and fourteen years each in three separate cases. 
“In the past, it used to be very subtle,” he told Arab News. “But this is unprecedented, at this level, so intense and widespread rigging, Pakistan’s establishment has broken its record.”
He cited the example of the election regulator’s move to strip Khan’s PTI of its unifying election symbol of the bat, which not only forced hundreds of its candidates to contest polls as independents each with their own symbol, but will also deprive the party of reserved seats for women and minorities, which are allocated on the basis of the number of general seats won by a party in an election. 
In Pakistan, election symbols appear on ballot papers, with voters able to put a stamp on their symbol of choice. The ballot paper also has names, but over 40 percent of Pakistan’s 241 million population are illiterate, making the pictures extra important for recognition.
With so many different symbols for PTI-backed independent candidates, Bari said, a large number of people, especially women and rural constituents, would not be able to correctly identify their favorite candidate on the ballot paper. Furthermore, he added, what did it say about the fairness of the election when hundreds of PTI candidates were forced underground at the time of the submission of nomination papers in December and as the party’s top leadership remained behind bars, facing hundreds of cases.
“I have been saying that this election is neither free nor fair,” Bari added, “but it is an absolutely transparent election because whatever is happening is happening in the clear light of day.”
RADICAL REFORM
But what is the solution to election manipulation? 
Under Pakistan’s electoral system, people elect a bicameral legislature, with the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, directly elected by the masses, while members of the upper house, the Senate, are chosen by elected provincial legislators.
“I think there is one way of minimizing corrupt practices and that is switching to a proportional representation (PR) system, instead of having this system which Pakistan has,” Pattan’s Bari said, referring to an electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body and all votes cast contribute to the result. 
The system produces a mixed, balanced representation, its proponents say. 
“So, you can introduce the PR system which will eliminate the attraction or incentives to constituency-based politicians to rig elections and that system can also deter to some extent the establishment from interfering because it will become difficult.”
Bari said under the current system, a party could win an election just by one vote.
“In the PR system you can’t win an election by one vote, or by 10 votes or by 200 votes, you can have more seats and the seats will be proportionately distributed according to the popular vote,” Bari explained.
In the last elections in 2018, he said, 48 National Assembly members were elected with less 5,000 votes
“So, 48 is a big number out of 272 [directly contested seats in National Assembly],” he said. “The PR system in my view is likely to eliminate at least a dozen means of rigging and this will also de-incentivize the control of electables because then the seats will be divided in each district according to the proportional votes each party gets.”
Ejaz the analyst recommended reducing the number of constituencies so that candidates had to campaign in entire districts, which would help break their hegemony on the basis of caste and communities that dominate constituencies.
Malik from (NUML) said “independent” institutions were the key to resolving the permanent pattern of rigging and manipulation:
“To ensure free and fair elections, we need independent institutions, an independent election commission, independent judiciary, vibrant media, rule of law, and genuine political parties,” he said, “who will not strike deals with power corridors.”