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Highlights of the week: Pakistan’s judiciary and military rift deepens as government tries to ban Imran KhanPrime Minister of the Party Nepal Expulsions and student protests Bangladesh It can be fatal.
Cracks in Pakistan’s judiciary and military threaten new political crisis
Pakistan’s Information Minister Atta Talal announced on Monday that the government plans to ban arguably the country’s most popular political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), led by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Talal said the PTI is “a direct threat to the foundations of our country.” Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar clarified the next day that the decision was not final, but his comments, including denouncing the PTI as a “foreign-funded party,” suggest the government still intends to go ahead with the move.
But any ban is unlikely to be upheld in court. Pakistan’s Supreme Court, which according to the constitution must approve any decision to ban a political party, ruled on Friday that the PTI is a legitimate political party and eligible to win an additional 23 seats in parliament. The government’s plan to ban the PTI is likely a direct response to this ruling.
These developments reflect an intensifying conflict between Pakistan’s judiciary and the military, which has formally ruled the country for decades and remains the most influential political actor. Relations between the civilian and military are typically what cause political tensions in Pakistan. But with Pakistan’s civilian government now enjoying good relations with the military leadership, the new rift between the judiciary and the military is the latest rift that threatens to bring new instability to Pakistan’s long-running political crisis.
Pakistan’s judiciary is often willing to intervene in domestic politics. This inevitably leads to tensions with the military, sometimes playing out in bizarre ways. In 2007, a bitter confrontation between Pakistan’s last military dictator, Pervez Musharraf, and the Supreme Court culminated in Musharraf suspending the constitution and dismissing Supreme Court Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The justice joined a large group of lawyers in pro-democracy demonstrations. Chaudhry became an unlikely symbol of the pro-democracy movement that contributed to Musharraf’s eventual ouster.
Today, the military is no longer formally in power and the judiciary is less overtly political. But new conflicts are developing. Since Khan was ousted as prime minister by a parliamentary vote of no confidence in April 2022, the government, indirectly led by the military, has cracked down on Khan and his party, including by pressuring the courts to rein in the PTI. As a result, Khan has faced multiple charges and convictions, many of which appear politically motivated.
PTI leaders have repeatedly gone to court for relief, and the Supreme Court has sometimes ruled in their favour, such as when it ordered Khan’s release after his first arrest in May 2023, but other times it has ruled against him, such as when it banned the use of the PTI’s symbol, a cricket bat, in this year’s elections.
Several factors make the recent judicial-military standoff particularly worrying. Since Khan’s ouster, civil-military relations have strengthened and leaders of the ruling coalition have been more willing to cede a say in policymaking to the military. This means that a government that shares the military’s goal of sidelining the PTI will not try to thwart its pressure on the courts.
The military has become even more eager to use the judiciary to rein in the PTI because of an ugly vendetta between the current military leadership and Khan, who has been a fierce critic of the army from his prison cell. Army facilities became targets of violent protests after Khan was first arrested.
The extent of this pressure was made clear in an explosive letter written by six high court judges to senior officials in March, in which they accused Pakistan’s military-run intelligence agencies of extreme interference and intimidation of judges and their families, including abduction, torture, and even the installation of hidden surveillance cameras in their bedrooms.
The standoff distracts policymakers from other major crises. Pakistan has been plagued by a resurgence in terrorism, with attacks rising sharply over the past year. On Monday, just weeks after the government announced a “revitalized” counterterrorism plan, militants stormed an army base in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least eight soldiers.
Moreover, Pakistan is facing severe economic stress. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), a key donor, announced a new staff-level agreement on Friday to provide new funds, but the agreement requires approval by the IMF’s executive board. The IMF has recently signaled a need for political stability in Pakistan and has indicated it may delay providing funds if instability worsens.
Pakistan is facing multiple crises and the potential costs of a dangerous conflict between its two key institutions could go far beyond politics.
What we follow
Nepal’s Dahal falls from grace. Last Friday, as the political outlook collapsed, Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal made a big gamble — and lost. Nepal’s politics have been in crisis for weeks since the Communist Party of Nepal-United National Alliance, the largest party in Dahal’s coalition government, broke away to support the main opposition Nepali Congress. Dahal refused to step down even as more than a dozen other ministers from his coalition government resigned. Instead, he called for a vote of confidence in parliament, which he suffered a major defeat on Friday and was ousted as prime minister.
The new government was formed quickly as the CPN-UML and Nepali Congress had already agreed to a new alliance led by CPN-UML leader and former prime minister KP Sharma Oli, who was sworn in as prime minister for the fourth time on Monday.
Any coalition government is likely to be short-lived as Nepali politics is notoriously divisive: Nepal has had 14 governments in the past 16 years and has had five confidence votes in the past two years due to conflicts between coalition partners.
Student protests rock Bangladesh. Tens of thousands of students have taken to the streets in Bangladesh to denounce a civil service quota system in some of the biggest anti-government protests Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has faced in years. At least six people were killed in clashes with police this week and authorities announced schools and universities would be closed until further notice.
The protests began late last month in reaction to a high court decision to reinstate quotas that gave up to 30 percent of civil service jobs to the descendants of freedom fighters who resisted Pakistani forces in Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971. Last week, the Supreme Court suspended the ruling for four weeks, but that has not quelled protesters’ anger.
Because the ruling Awami League led the independence movement, critics see the quotas as partisan and designed to ensure sufficient party support in government, but also to reduce meritocratic job opportunities in a country with high youth unemployment. Indeed, the Awami League often politicizes the 1971 war. On Sunday, for example, Prime Minister Hasina linked quota critics to those who collaborated with the Pakistani military in the war, remarks that sparked a new wave of protests this week.
Ambani wedding in India. Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani wed his son Anant in a lavish wedding in Mumbai from Friday to Sunday. Weddings in South Asia are often long and lavish, but Ambani’s was on a different level in scale. It was preceded by a lavish six-month pre-wedding festivities that included appearances by A-list entertainers such as Rihanna, Katy Perry and Justin Bieber, a Mediterranean cruise and a light show featuring 5,500 drones. Total wedding-related expenses were estimated at $600 million.
It would be simplistic to describe weddings as displays of wealth in an impoverished country. India has indeed made impressive progress in reducing poverty, lifting 415 million people out of poverty between 2005-06 and 2019-21. But millions of people in the country of 1.4 billion remain impoverished, and their plight has been exacerbated by long-standing unemployment and a recent surge in inflation.
It’s a stark contrast to the lives of the Ambanis and a small minority of India’s super-elite. To his credit, Ambani has done his part to give back to society — he is one of India’s biggest philanthropists and has invested heavily in the country’s health and education sectors. But that doesn’t hide the country’s vast inequalities, which recent studies suggest are greater now than they were in colonial times, and which his son’s wedding has brought into stark relief.
In secret
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to China from July 8 to 10 was a success on many counts. In her first visit to Beijing in five years, Hasina met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior officials and signed 28 bilateral agreements, mainly focused on investment and trade, elevating China-Bangladesh ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership.
However, the visit was mired in controversy as Indian media and Bangladeshi opposition parties jumped on the fact that Hasina had left Beijing 12 hours earlier than scheduled. They cited various reasons for her early departure, including that she was not happy with her treatment in China, that she had not received enough coverage in the Chinese media, and that Beijing had not promised as much financial support as expected.
But this is a bit dubious. Despite its close partnership with India, Bangladesh attaches great importance to its relationship with China, which has strengthened militarily and economically in recent years. It makes little strategic sense for Hasina to be unhappy with the visit and return home early, embarrassing her hosts and risking a deterioration in relations. Dhaka’s explanation is that Hasina’s daughter had fallen ill and she wanted to return home to be with them.
That may have been a factor, but it’s also worth keeping in mind what was happening in Bangladesh: The quota protests were just beginning to pick up steam when Hasina left for China. As a wise acquaintance of mine in Dhaka puts it, she may have concluded that her official duties in Beijing were over and it would be best for her to return home early to deal with challenges that would only worsen on her return.
Voices from the local community
Ann editorial in Prothom Alo It criticised the Bangladesh government for not taking tougher action against defaulters to strengthen the banking sector. “Instead of going down that path, policymakers… are trying to give everyone a false sense of security by offering a lower amount.”[s] “Defaulted loans”
Scholar Dharma Adhikariin progress Kathmandu Postargues that while Nepali media is more vibrant than some critics say, there is still much to be done. For starters, “Nepalese media must encourage creativity and maintain professional standards to foster true innovation,” he writes. “Simply focusing on content is not enough.”
Pakistani politician Zarqa Suharwardi Taimur,writing The Express TribuneIt criticised what it said was a “lack of oversight and accountability for government officials and departments, and a lack of determination by public officials to hold themselves and others accountable” in its political system.
