Pakistan’s elections on 8 February were meant to bring stability to the country after almost two years of turmoil but the fraudulent nature of the polls has deepened political divisions. It will also bring more instability to a nuclear-armed, 240-million strong country already shaky at best in a critically important geostrategic region.

In the months leading up to the long-awaited elections, the judiciary and the military pursued a dual track strategy: ensure that the highly popular former prime minister, Imran Khan, is never able to run for political office again and reinvigorate the political fortunes of Nawaz Sharif, the three-time former prime minister and leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz).

Following his loss of power in a parliamentary vote of no confidence in April 2022, Khan was relentlessly pursued by the judiciary which eventually handed him three sentences for corruption, leaking state secrets and an illegal marriage, for a total of 24 years. He was barred from politics and sent to gaol. His Pakistan Justice Movement (PTI) was disbanded, its electoral symbol (the cricket bat) outlawed, and its members banned from running as PTI members.

Nawaz Sharif—a convicted corrupt politician who’s had an ambivalent relationship with the army for 40 years, was brought back from a four-year self-exile in London as an alternative to Khan. Soon after Nawaz’s return to Pakistan the corruption charges he faced were dropped and his life ban from politics was lifted. The path was now clear for his smooth return to power. However, what was meant to be a walk in the park for Nawaz and the PML(N) turned out very differently on election day. The millions of pro-Imran Khan supporters were not interested in singing off the score sheet handed over by the army.

Even with all the measures taken to ensure there was no level playing field, and the ballot stuffing at a number of polling stations, the PML(N), was only able to win the second largest number of seats (75). Instead, the former PTI members—running as independents—won the largest number of seats, 93 of the 266 up for grabs. The independents’ total seats could increase as they are contesting the result of over a dozen others they claim have been stolen from them. Nevertheless, Nawaz declared victory, and will try—with great difficulty, to form a coalition government with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of the late Benazir Bhutto. The only bond between the PML(N) and the PPP is that their hatred of each other is slightly less than their hatred of the PTI.

International reaction to these elections, including from the US, the UK and the EU, was negative, with several countries calling for investigations into the allegations of vote-tempering and pre-poll obstructions. The Australian government also made it clear that that it was concerned that ‘the Pakistani people were restricted in their choice, since not all political parties were allowed to contest these elections’.

Notwithstanding the evidence to the contrary, much of it posted on social media platforms even though mobile internet connections were restricted, the Chief of Army Staff, General Asim Munir, commended the Electoral Commission for running such a successful election and stressed the significance of free and unhindered participation by Pakistani people in exercising their right to vote. Similarly, the caretaker prime minister, Anwaarul Haq Kakar, believed that the ‘nation had accepted the results’ and the country needed to move on. Moreover, he brushed aside international criticism of the elections as ‘not that big a deal’.

Despite the compromised nature of these polls, a PML(N)-led coalition government is the most likely—but not certain—outcome of the elections. According to the latest reports, it would be led by Shehbaz Sharif, Nawaz’s younger brother who was prime minister after Khan was ousted in April 2022. But the real power will still be held behind the scenes by Nawaz Sharif. Given the fragility of the coalition, which will include smaller parties and non-PTI-leaning independents, this will be a weak government with little legitimacy. This is unfortunate given that whoever is prime minister will have to make some particularly difficult decisions on the economy, handle adroitly the country’s foreign relations, and manage a growing terrorist threat.

Pakistan is an economic mess, with 40% of the population living under the poverty line, an inflation rate that has hit 30%, a rupee whose value has halved in 10 years, and barely enough foreign exchange to cover the cost of imports for a month or so. The country avoided economic meltdown in August 2023 by securing a standby arrangement of US$3 billion with the IMF. However, this bailout runs out in March and a new one—the 24^th in Pakistan’s history—will need to be negotiated. The IMF will undoubtedly demand that the government implement more austerity measures, including continuing to reduce subsidies on essential commodities. Imposing draconian economic measures on an already struggling population will not be easy, particularly given Nawaz’s lack of popular support. We can expect serious social unrest down the road.

A Shehbaz-led government will also have to deal with the growing terrorist threat, mainly but not solely from the Afghanistan-based Pakistan Taliban (TTP), which has continued to increase since the Taliban took over in neighbouring Afghanistan in August 2021. Pakistan has repeatedly demanded that the Taliban government of Afghanistan cease to support the TTP. But the Taliban isn’t about to turn on the TTP, an organisation with which it has deep ideological, operational, historical and tribal links. Kabul also knows that the Pakistani military doesn’t want to escalate this issue by pursuing the TTP unto Afghan territory. Moreover, given Pakistan’s poor fiscal position, it cannot afford another expensive military operation. Accordingly, Pakistan-Afghan relations will probably continue to be frozen, and the scourge of terrorism to fester.

This will not be well received by the leaders in Beijing who persistently press Pakistan to do more against the terrorists roaming the countryside regularly killing Chinese workers and officials working on the US$60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).  Pakistan already has some 10,000 security personnel dedicated solely to the protection of Chinese interests in Pakistan. Still, relations with China will continue on an even keel or even deepen. It was after all under Nawaz’s third stint (2013-2018), that CPEC started.

We can expect Indo-Pakistan relations to possibly improve. The personal dynamics between Nawaz and Indian PM Narendra Modi have been good in the past. Nawaz attended Modi’s 2014 inauguration and Modi visited Nawaz in Lahore in December 2015—the first visit by an Indian leader in more than a decade. But while Nawaz would probably be interested in improving relations with Delhi, it was the perception that he was warming up too much to the Indians when he was in power which critically contributed to the military orchestrating his downfall in 2017. Shehbaz, under the guidance of Nawaz, is unlikely to make the same mistake.

Despite Washington’s public criticism of Pakistan’s seriously flawed election, the Biden administration is committed to ‘strengthening its security cooperation’ with Islamabad regardless as to who eventually becomes prime minister. Pakistan continues to be a valuable regional partner, being in a unique position to monitor developments in Afghanistan. Finally, whilst Washington may have had issues with the election process, it will absolutely not miss Imran Khan, who repeatedly accused the US of having been instrumental, with the help of Pakistan’s military, in his downfall in April 2022.  Secretary Blinken’s meeting with General Asim Munir—the man who effectively runs Pakistan, in Washington only a few weeks before the elections only reinforced this common perception in Pakistan. However, given Munir’s massive miscalculation on the elections, his days may well be numbered.

How long the next prime minister will last in office is anyone’s guess, but given that no prime minister has ever completed their term in Pakistan’s 75-year history, I suspect the odds are poor that Shehbaz Sharif will break that tradition.

This year marked a decade since the collapse of the Rana Plaza in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which resulted in over 1,100 deaths. On the morning of 24 April 2013, workers were instructed to enter garment factories located in a building with substantial cracks and visible structural failure. It took less than 90 seconds for Rana Plaza to crumble. It was described as ‘mass industrial homicide’ at the time and survivors faced a strenuous physical and mental recovery that was compounded by extended delays in compensation from a US$30 million recovery fund—a meagre pledge from a global garment industry valued in the trillions.

As a response to international pressure, the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety and the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety were enacted between trade unions and some garment brands to ensure legally binding action on workplace safety hazards. The accord was renewed in 2021 as the International Accord for Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry and extended to include commitments in Pakistan.

Significantly, it establishes a legal obligation for signatory brands to sever relations with factories that refuse to adhere to safety standards following an independent inspection. The Worker Rights Consortium estimates that since 2013, this approach has identified and addressed over 130,000 safety violations, including the immediate evacuation of 50 factories primed for disaster. The accord, however, is due to expire in October of this year.

As governments strive for more resilient global supply chains, the protection of workers can’t be overstated nor ignored. It’s essential that the garment industry is pressured to renew the accord with even stronger protections.

The accord has tangibly protected workers, but it remains voluntary for employers and there are still major brands absent from its signatory list, including Myer, Levi’s, and Walmart. These companies usually claim their self-regulation processes are sufficient, despite often being considered ineffective.

The accord also doesn’t sufficiently address broader human rights issues in supply chains. In recent years, the demands of fast fashion combined with the insecurity of the Covid-19 pandemic have subjected workers to coercive conditions like withheld benefits and salaries, extensive overtime, verbal and physical threats, sexual harassment and abuse, and more.

These conditions predominantly affect women and young people, and demand responses that consider the interaction of gender, age and other factors with workplace power dynamics. The prevalence of gender-based violence in the sector was re-exposed in 2021 when a male supervisor in a H&M supplier factory was charged with the murder of a female garment worker.

While evidence of human rights violations continues to accumulate, the industry has produced scant targeted protection for garment workers in the last decade. In its Ethical Fashion Report, Baptist World Aid revealed that a decade after the disaster, none of the companies surveyed pay a living wage.

Compounding this, climate change will add to the pain of garment industry workers. Heatwaves pose an immediate health risks for workers, and may worsen gender-based violence and harassment. The industry must go beyond ‘greenwashing’ and appropriately address the human rights implications of climate change.

Additionally, climate-related displacement is likely to increase the proportion of migrant workers in the garment industry. Migrant workers are more vulnerable to human rights abuses as they lack legal protection. They suffer higher rates of debt bondage, excessive hours, wage reduction, discrimination, usually because of threats of deportation. There’s also a growing number of home-based garment workers operating in the informal economy without targeted protections or formal contracts. Most of these are women, who must also contend with restrictive gender norms, unpaid domestic labour, and inadequate housing.

The inept national governance and corruption that permitted the Rana Plaza disaster must also be addressed. It’s essential that protections for garment workers are cemented before Bangladesh’s expected graduation from least developed country status as its exit from duty-free quota schemes will alter the international labour trade with potentially dire consequences for vulnerable workers.

The wellbeing of garment workers extends beyond the remit of one accord and must be viewed as a human rights, trade, labour, environmental, governance and development issue.

A holistic approach that involves these sectors and brings together stakeholders throughout the supply chain is underexplored and utilised. Garment workers themselves deserve greater support and a comprehensive approach that’s centred on their experiences and demands.

Saheli Women, for example, is a non-profit atelier based in Rajasthan, India, that prioritises the empowerment of female workers in order to achieve sustainable community development.

Its founder, Madhu Vaishnav, is proud to describe the model as her ‘gift to the world’. She emphasises that business, development and sustainability do not operate in silos, and that ‘women are the main pillar of sustainability, who need to be involved in the process at every level’.

“We empower one woman [in her work], and this one woman will go back and empower the entire family.”

Integrating grassroots sustainable development like this with a human rights approach throughout the supply chain is possible. And to end the ongoing exploitation and endangerment of the people who make our clothes, it’s necessary. A decade on from the Rana Plaza disaster, it’s time to take meaningful action.

More than six decades ago, the world’s most generous water-sharing pact was concluded. Under the Indus Waters Treaty, upstream India left the lion’s share of the waters from the subcontinent’s six-river Indus system for downstream Pakistan. But repeated Pakistani efforts to use the treaty to disrupt India’s efforts to safeguard its own water security have driven India to rethink its largesse.

Last month, India issued notice to Pakistan that it intends to negotiate new terms for the treaty. In its current form, the treaty permits the World Bank to refer any India–Pakistan disagreement to either a neutral international expert or a court of arbitration in The Hague. But India contends that Pakistan, with its repeated bids for international intercession to block modestly sized Indian hydropower projects over technical objections, has abused and even breached the treaty’s dispute-settlement provisions.

India’s frustration intensified last October when the World Bank appointed both a neutral expert and a court of arbitration, under two separate processes, to resolve differences with Pakistan over India’s Kishenganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects in Jammu and Kashmir. India claims that the arbitral court proceedings, which began two days after it issued its notice to Pakistan, contravene the treaty, so it is boycotting them. The World Bank, for its part, has acknowledged that ‘carrying out the two processes concurrently poses practical and legal challenges’.

India’s renegotiation plan—which focuses on barring third parties from intervening in bilateral disputes under the treaty—appears to be a direct response to these developments. But, as India well knows, Pakistan is highly unlikely to agree to negotiations. This suggests that India’s recent notice to Pakistan is just its opening gambit. The next step may well be an attempt to force Pakistan’s hand on its long-term sponsorship of cross-border terrorism.

This has been coming for some time. Six years ago, after an attack by Pakistan-based terrorists on the Indian military in Jammu and Kashmir killed 19 troops, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared, ‘Blood and water cannot flow together.’ In a sense, his statement got to the heart of the treaty, which India pursued precisely to improve relations with Pakistan and avoid bloodshed on the subcontinent.

When the treaty was signed in 1960, Sino-Indian tensions were high, so India effectively attempted to trade water for peace with its other large neighbour, Pakistan. The treaty—under which India keeps less than 20% of the total basin waters—is the only international water agreement embodying the doctrine of restricted sovereignty, with the upstream country agreeing to forgo significant use of a river system for the benefit of its downstream counterpart.

But the deal appeared only to whet Pakistan’s appetite for the Indian-administered region of Jammu and Kashmir, through which the largest three rivers of the Indus system flow. Five years later, in 1965, Pakistan launched a surprise war—the second conflict between the two countries over the region’s status.

All the while, the treaty guaranteed to Pakistan a huge share of Jammu and Kashmir’s water—the region’s main natural resource. This hampered economic development, led to chronic electricity shortages, and fuelled popular frustration in that territory. And when India attempted to address the region’s energy crunch by building run-of-the-river hydropower plants—which are permitted by the treaty, and would not materially alter transboundary water flows—Pakistan did everything it could to block progress.

Ironically, Pakistani officials and lawmakers have sometimes issued their own calls to renegotiate the treaty. In 2016, for example, the Pakistani Senate passed a resolution to ‘revisit’ the treaty and ‘make new provisions’ that favoured Pakistan. But far from advancing Pakistan’s interests, such actions have merely reminded the Indian public that, at a time of growing water stress, the treaty is an albatross around their country’s neck.

To be sure, Pakistan has plenty of its own water-related problems. A deep divide has emerged between downriver provinces and the upriver Punjab province, which appropriates the bulk of the Indus waters to sustain its profligate agricultural practices. Punjab’s water diversion—aided by large China-backed dams in the Pakistani portion of Kashmir, including the massive Diamer Bhasha Dam—is turning the Indus Delta into a saline marsh, which represents a major ecological disaster.

But none of this is the fault of the treaty, which is clearly in Pakistan’s interest to safeguard. To do that, Pakistan must stop focusing only on its treaty-related rights, while neglecting its responsibilities. This includes rethinking the use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy—a tactic that runs counter to the spirit of the treaty and threatens to drive India unilaterally to withdraw from it.

Such action would not cause river flows to Pakistan suddenly to stop, as India lacks the kind of hydro infrastructure this would require, and has no plans to change that. But it would enable India to pursue reasonable hydro projects without dam reservoirs, regardless of Pakistani objections. More fundamentally, it would sever a crucial diplomatic thread between India and Pakistan.

For any treaty to survive, the advantages it confers on all parties must outweigh the duties and responsibilities it imposes. The Indus Waters Treaty is nowhere near meeting that standard for India, which has so far accrued no tangible benefits from it. What has been called the ‘world’s most successful water treaty’ has overwhelmingly benefited Pakistan, which has a powerful incentive to abandon its combative approach and embrace the compromise and cooperation needed to save it.

Among all the nuclear-armed states, Pakistan is the most fragile. The country keeps lurching from one crisis to another. The latest arises from the election commission’s banning of the former but popular Prime Minister Imran Khan from holding public office. Khan has vowed to fight the ban to the bitter end, putting him at odds with Pakistan’s powerful military whose favour he has lost. This power struggle may change Pakistan’s political paradigm.

Khan was deposed last April in a parliamentary vote of no confidence by a coalition of the Pakistan Democratic Movement, formed by a number of right and centre-left parties in 2020 and led by Shehbaz Sharif (a former chief minister of Punjab province and brother of ex–prime minister Nawaz Sharif). After some of the coalition members of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party defected to the opposition, Khan lost his majority.

He has blamed his loss of power on a US-led conspiracy against him because of his independent foreign policy and for not following Washington on regional and international issues. While  increasingly sounding critical of the US and holding Washington responsible for the plight of Afghanistan under the Pakistan-backed Taliban rule, he has not substantiated his claim. Reportedly, the main reason for Khan’s downfall was that his relations fractured with the military over the appointment of the head of the military intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, in October 2021.

The military has ruled Pakistan directly and indirectly for most of its existence since the country’s creation in 1947, with a pervasive role in every aspect of the nation’s life. Irrespective of one’s criticisms, the military has also been instrumental in holding together Pakistan’s five disparate national groups—the Punjabis, Sindhis, Baluchis, Pathans (whose kindred are called Pashtuns on the Afghanistan side of the border) and Muhajirs (those who migrated from British India during partition). In popular rallies, the opposition claims that Khan has maligned state institutions, including the judiciary and the military.

The latest political upheaval besetting Pakistan comes against the backdrop of deep-seated conditions of instability. It reflects the plight of a country where no elected prime minister has ever completed a full term and where economic, financial and social decline; underclass poverty; pervasive corruption; and national fragmentation have grown to be the order of the day. Extreme political Islamism has not wielded much political power, but it has been a disruptive and costly player, as embodied in such groups as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, whose relations with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban as a creature of Pakistan’s military (or, more specifically, ISI) must not be underestimated.

Pakistan’s founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, had intended Sunni Islam and the Westminster system of governance to define Pakistan’s national identity and cohesion, but that was not to be. The military has used both institutions, though in the context of longstanding Indo-Pakistan hostilities, to cement a pivotal role in Pakistan’s domestic and foreign affairs. It has harvested whatever ideologically and geopolitically possible to enforce Pakistan’s ambitions in Afghanistan and close ties with oil-rich Saudi Arabia, as well as with China and the United States for strategic reasons when opportune.

The military has historically benefited from Saudi petrodollar aid and counted on China’s economic and military support in a common cause against India. In addition, from the time of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and then the US intervention in that country in the wake of the 11 September 2001 terror attacks, it enjoyed enormous American financial and military aid by claiming to be on the side of Washington in the ‘war on terror’, though at the same time it continued to back the Taliban as the force fighting American and allied troops in Afghanistan. To maintain Washington’s aid flow, it harboured the leader of al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, next to its military academy in Abbottabad near Islamabad until he was discovered and killed by the US in a special operation in total secrecy from Pakistani authorities in 2011.

However, the military’s privileged entrenchment in and control of Pakistan are now challenged by Khan with unsurpassed popularity. The power struggle is going to be a test of will on both sides, but it’s eventuating at a time when there are rumours of growing tensions within the military itself. According to some Pakistani analysts, a split is brewing in the higher echelons of the military between those who think that it has gone too far in its treatment of Khan and those who are still determined to maintain control over the Pakistani state.

A majority of Pakistanis are now more concerned about the security of their country than ever before. A downturn in the military’s cohesion and national chaos and fragmentation in a nuclear-armed state carries dangerously unpredictable risks, unless Pakistan is financially and economically bailed out and a fair and free general election is held sooner rather than later.

Imran Khan’s less than four-year stint as prime minister of Pakistan came to an abrupt end with his defeat in a vote of no confidence in the National Assembly on 9 April. His departure marked the end of a month of high political drama in Islamabad.

Pakistan’s political crisis began on 8 March when the opposition, led by Shahbaz Sharif, the head of the Pakistan Muslim League—Nawaz, tabled a motion of no confidence in the prime minister. Skilfully using parliamentary tactics, Khan and his party, the Pakistan Movement for Justice (PTI), managed to delay the vote on the motion until 4 April. And then two hours before the vote, the deputy speaker of the National Assembly dismissed the motion as invalid, claiming that there had been foreign interference in the process. With the motion now removed, the prime minister called a snap election, following his request to the president to dissolve the National Assembly.

The opposition rejected these parliamentary manoeuvrings and asked the Supreme Court to make a ruling on their legality. After four days of deliberations, a panel of five judges unanimously ruled that the dismissal of the no confidence motion was unconstitutional, as were the dissolution of the National Assembly and the calling of the election. The vote on the motion of no confidence would go ahead. This coup de theatre was unexpected; most people believed that the deputy speaker’s decision wouldn’t be overturned.

In front of a massive crowd in Islamabad on 3 April, Khan, clutching a piece of paper, claimed to have proof that the opposition was colluding with the Americans for his removal. The ‘smoking gun’ in his hand was purported to be a memo from Pakistani diplomats in Washington about a meeting they’d had on 7 March with the US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, Donald Lu, in which he had allegedly told them Khan was the obstacle to any improvement in US–Pakistan relations. While the White House hasn’t denied that the meeting occurred, it has rejected any US attempt at regime change in Pakistan.

Anti-Americanism is always a great crowd-pleaser in Pakistan, but even the massive show of popular support for Khan wasn’t enough to save him from defeat. Having failed to win a majority in parliament in elections in 2018, Khan had had to cobble together a loose coalition of minor parties for his political survival. However, as his political fortunes began to turn—principally due to poor economic management, including double-digit inflation and a drop in per capita income—these parties abandoned him. Shenanigans and dirty deals were reportedly used to get members of the PTI to switch to the opposition on the day of the vote.

The military calls the shots in Pakistan; the opposition’s move against the prime minister would not have succeeded if it hadn’t been for the military’s abandonment of Khan. In the 2018 elections, it was an open secret that the former cricket hero was the army’s favourite candidate. But the generals soon discovered that Khan was less docile than they thought he’d be. A very public fracas over the appointment of a new military intelligence chief—which went to Chief of the Army Staff General Qamar Bajwa—was a turning point in the deteriorating relationship.

However, what made the generals particularly uncomfortable was Khan’s increasingly anti-American rhetoric. His referring to the Taliban taking over in Kabul from the American-backed government in August 2021 as Afghanistan’s ‘breaking the shackles of slavery’ would have been especially irksome to the men in uniform.

More recently, Khan’s visit to Moscow on the day Russian tanks were rolling into Ukraine was probably a bridge too far. This was compounded by his refusal to call Russia’s ‘special military operation’ an invasion and his government’s abstention on a UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s actions.

However, at a high-level security conference in Islamabad on 2 April, Bajwa set the record straight by stating that the US and Pakistan had had a long strategic relationship and America was Pakistan’s most important export market. Pointedly, he referred to Russia’s ‘invasion’ and stressed that ‘Russia’s aggression against a smaller country cannot be condoned’. The prime minister’s political fate was sealed.

So, with Shahbaz Sharif—who happens to be the brother of Nawaz Sharif, the three-time prime minister of Pakistan—now at the helm, will US–Pakistan relations improve? Possibly, but, if so, certainly nothing dramatic will happen because Pakistan’s foreign policy drivers are not about to change. Islamabad will continue to deepen its long-term strategic and military relationship with China. It may, however, go easy on its recently newly found friendship with Russia. Importantly, Bajwa has indicated that he’d be willing to talk to India to try to resolve the Kashmir issue. That’s good news.

Khan has made it clear he has no intention of taking his defeat lying down, stating that he won’t ‘accept an imported government’. He will undoubtedly organise massive rallies and whip up his millions of supporters in the lead-up to the next election in July 2023. Whether that will be sufficient for him to reclaim the premiership is a moot point.

However, one thing is certain now that Khan has been removed from power: there will be less-visceral anti-American rhetoric emanating from Islamabad. But will that be enough for President Joe Biden to finally make that long-awaited phone call to the new prime minister, the one Khan never received? Probably not.