Pakistan, which celebrates its 75th birthday in August, is once more undergoing internal regime change. The fifth attempt by the South Asian nation's military to shape the political system is coming to an end. The "hybrid regime" that Prime Minister Imran Khan was leading to fail comes at a time when the economy is getting worse and the relationship with the United States is getting harder to work with. However, despite the current crisis's chaos, it still presents a chance for the nation's civilian and military stakeholders to break out of the causality loop that has the country alternating between direct military rule and weak civilian governments. When the deputy speaker of the parliament, in violation of the constitution, refused to hold a vote of no confidence that would have led to Khan's ouster, arguing that the opposition's move to unseat him was part of a U.S. effort at regime change, Pakistan was plunged into a major political crisis on April 3. After that, Khan appeared on television to make the announcement that he had asked the president to call for new elections and dissolve parliament, which was another violation of the constitution. The crisis was taken seriously by the Supreme Court, and a five-member bench is expected to decide whether these developments are legal. Khan's decline in popularity in parliament is primarily attributable to the fact that he has lost the military's support, which aided in his rise to power in 2018 and continued to do so until late last year. The military withdrew its support in large part due to the poor governance and economic management of his administration. 
Khan claimed on March 27 that he had documentary evidence that the United States was behind the opposition's efforts to oust him, realizing that his political survival was unlikely. The Pakistani media have slammed his statement as an attempt to salvage his position at the expense of the most important foreign relationship for the country. Regardless of what happens to Khan, anti-Americanism will likely rise, particularly among the substantial portion of Pakistanis who support Khan. This will make Islamabad's efforts to improve relations with Washington more difficult.
The highly contentious elections of 2018 were marred by electoral engineering by the army-led establishment, and as a result, Khan was elected prime minister. His party would not have been able to increase from 35 to 149 seats in a free and fair election, especially given that the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) led by former three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif remained popular. Even though his base continues to support him, Khan's administration's poor and controversial performance over the past three and a half years has made his party even less popular. 
Five Cycles The current political crisis is the tumultuous conclusion of the country's powerful army's fifth attempt to control politics since the late 1950s. The first four involved military regimes led by General Pervez Musharraf from 1999 to 2008, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq from 1977 to 1988, General Yahya Khan from 1969 to 1971, and Field Marshal Ayub Khan from 1958 to 1969. The military leadership attempted to subvert the constitutional process in each of these eras, aiming to establish a system in which the legislature was subordinated to a powerful presidency led by the top general. When the military was unable to maintain the political setup, each of these attempts failed, despite the elaborate constitutional engineering. The military was forced to fade into the background after each of these experiments failed, allowing for a brief return to democratic politics. These periods of constitutional politics have varied in length, but one thing they all have in common is that the military has tried to slow down the process of civilianization by doing things behind the scenes.
With Ayub Khan's demise, the first attempt to establish a political system dominated by the military was unsuccessful. Yahya Khan, his successor, not only imposed martial law but also organized the first free and fair elections in the country's history in 1970 as part of the military's second round of political experimentation.
Because of the military ruler's constant need for legitimacy, martial law is unable to last indefinitely and must be diluted. Ayub Khan officially left the military at the beginning of the 1960s to lead a brand-new presidential system that his junta had developed from the ground up. In stark contrast, Zia maintained his position as army chief and amended the 1973 constitution to grant him the presidency and the authority to fire the prime minister and the parliament in May 1988. The third cycle came to an end and paved the way for the return of civilian governance. Three months after his death, a mysterious plane crash claimed the lives of several top military brass.
The country went through four short-lived elected governments over the next 11 years, with Benazir Bhutto as prime minister from 1988 to 1990 and Nawaz Sharif as prime minister from 1990 to 1993 and 1997 to 1999, respectively. Presidents, who were proxies of the military establishment and possessed the power to dismiss the legislature in accordance with a clause inserted into the constitution by the Zia regime in 1985, removed the Bhutto governments as well as the first Sharif administration. This clause was a good way to get rid of a civilian government that was trying to stand on its own and was resisting the military's daily attempts to reduce its power. The military's efforts were aided by the two opposing parties' alliance with the establishment. With a two-thirds vote in the legislature, Sharif enacted the 13th Amendment during his second term, removing the president's authority to remove the government and dissolve parliament.
However, the military used yet another coup led by Musharraf to install a fourth military regime, demonstrating that the move did not protect civilian governments from arbitrary dismissals. Musharraf devised a novel strategy to establish a new order that would formally be civilian in terms of governance but with him, a serving general, sitting atop the structure in the role of president with sweeping powers he decreed in 2002 as changes to the constitution. He was aware of the fate of the putschists of the past. Musharraf's system worked for a while because he was popular—until it didn't. He was doomed in 2007 due to a series of actions, including the sacking of the chief justice of the supreme court, an army operation against Islamist militants who had taken over a major mosque in the capital, running for president while still holding the position of army chief, and imposing a state of emergency.He was forced to resign as military chief in November 2007, after which he effectively lost power (though he was president in abeyance until August 2008). The fourth attempt by the military to subordinate the country's political economy effectively came to an end when the new army chief made the decision to remove the armed forces from politics. The PPP won elections earlier that year, restoring the democratic process just weeks after Islamist militants killed its leader, Benazir Bhutto. The PPP remained in power for a full five years, and after Sharif's PML-N won the 2013 elections, Pakistan experienced its first-ever transfer of power from one duly elected democratic government to another. This was made possible in no small part by the two mainstream parties agreeing not to subvert each other in the 2006 Charter of Democracy. The military went back to indirectly shaping the civilian government's behavior and limiting its authority. 
The Hybrid Regime's Rise and Fall The Musharraf regime's fall had boosted civilian governance, particularly with the passage of the 18th Amendment in 2009, which restored the supremacy of the parliament and devolved a number of powers to the provinces. It was a turning point in history and a significant step toward the establishment of civilian rule. The military was extremely concerned about this and was unable to tolerate any significant efforts to establish civilian supremacy over it. By the time the third Sharif government took office, the military had quietly developed a third alternative to the PPP/PML-N duopoly for a few years: PTI of Khan.
The well-known cricketer-turned-philanthropist founded the modest PTI party in 1996. Despite being a national hero because of his sports career and the establishment of a major cancer hospital, Khan was only able to win one seat in the 2002 election. His first major rally in the country, which drew an unprecedentedly large crowd energized by his anti-corruption agenda, was not held until 2011. The assistance of the military, particularly its Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, made this display of strength possible.
In spite of the assistance provided by the military, Khan had established a political base that would enable him to win 36 seats in the 2013 elections. At first, Khan claimed foul play, claiming that his party was denied a much larger share of the parliamentary pie due to electoral fraud. His party, supported by the military, took to the streets and staged a months-long sit-in demanding Sharif resign from the premiership when an official investigation found no evidence to support his claims. Over the next four years, the PTI increased its pressure on the Sharif government. In 2017, in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal, Sharif was removed from power and banned from holding public office for life in a Supreme Court decision that was made possible by the military establishment
In the meantime, the military had begun getting ready for the elections in 2018 and had once more engaged in electoral engineering, allowing Khan's PTI to more than quadruple its seats and form a government, a result that the opposition and most independent observers considered to be highly contentious. Pro-military commentators referred to the "hybrid regime" as evidence that the military had succeeded in establishing a viable third political force. This new political system was centered on a populist party that was said to be on the same page as the military establishment and swept to power through elections marred by massive irregularities.
Khan, on the other hand, lacked the experience and expertise necessary for governance, as did his associates, whom he elevated to high government positions. In addition, he seemed more interested in keeping his campaign promise to bring his political opponents to justice, whom he had portrayed with force as completely corrupt in a narrative that had gained widespread support. As a result, governance issues, particularly economic management, suffered, and the country's crucial relationships with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States were harmed by his unconventional foreign policy decisions. In a similar vein, relations with India fell to an all-time low, upsetting even China, Islamabad's "all-weather" ally.
The military did everything in its power to protect Khan from criticism for the first three years, preventing the opposition from taking advantage of the government's bad policies and even offering Khan advice on how to make better domestic and foreign policy. However, despite the deteriorating economy, the prime minister continued to give his domestic political needs top priority. In October, the prime minister got into a very public argument with army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa over the appointment of a new director-general of intelligence. Khan opposed the transfer of the incumbent Lt.-Gen., and the situation reached a point of no return. Faiz Hamid, whose assistance in Khan's rise to power was crucial.
In that dispute that lasted for several weeks, the army came to the conclusion that Khan had transformed into a liability rather than an asset. His actions had resulted in an unprecedented situation in which public criticism of the establishment began to emerge from the country's core Punjab province, despite the fact that the military had brought him to power to safeguard its institutional interests. The opposition took advantage of the situation and began efforts to unseat Khan after the top brass decided to stop supporting him.The Long Road Ahead With the hybrid regime's collapse, the military's fifth cyclical attempt to control the country's political system came to an end, and the system was brought back to the constitutional process once more. This most recent attempt, in contrast to the previous four, was designed to avoid the need for covert coups or management. But the design of the hybrid regime was based on the assumption that the patron's interests would not diverge too much from those of the military proxy, and that the proxy would be able to improve governance with the patron's help.
Even though things are bad, Pakistan has a chance now to get out of the causality loop that it has been in for decades and escape at the necessary velocity. The political parties that are currently united in their opposition to Khan's misrule must continue to cooperate democratically. More importantly, these civilian forces must collaborate with the military establishment to begin redressing the long-standing imbalance in their relationships with the military. All parties involved should be motivated to begin the long journey toward ending the cyclical alternation between brief moments of constitutional governance and the military's interventions, which subvert the normal evolutionary course toward social, political, and economic development, by the country's current state of turmoil. However, until the Supreme Court makes a decision, there is currently a great deal of uncertainty. Khan's political agenda will likely continue to destabilize the nation and complicate its relations with the United States for years to come, regardless of its verdict or the specific way out of the current crisis.
.png)
