Tens of thousands of protesters belonging to the party of Pakistan’s ousted prime minister Imran Khan, jailed for the last one year, invaded the tree-lined streets of the federal capital of Islamabad.

It was no easy feat for them to get there. They used raw power and powerful vehicles to remove massive shipping containers piled three deep. They pushed past police and military barricades. Many were from Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party, the PTI or Justice Party still rules.

The army and police were also in the capital by the thousands. The jury is still out on whether force or reason wins the day. If force wins, Pakistan loses.

Rejecting present system

Still the show of support for Khan, speaks volumes about the changing state of Pakistan’s politics. For some, perhaps even many, it is about the individual, but for many it is also about rejecting a system they have long felt has ignored and abused them.

When Khan was ousted back in April 2022 his popularity was iffy at best, but discontent set in when a no confidence vote threw him out. Largely orchestrated by a military frustrated with Khan’s increasing independence, it returned to power the country’s tried and largely discredited past politicians.

The army chief at the time Gen. Asif Bajwa all but admitted to the army’s role in Khan’s ouster, which Khan said was done at the behest of the United States, which America flatly denied, though Washington most likely didn’t mourn his ouster.

Khan was a major critic of America’s war on terror and images of him shaking Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hand on an official visit to Moscow the day Russia invaded Ukraine didn’t help his standing with Washington. In fairness to Khan his trip was planned months earlier, but a self-righteous U.S. expressed its outrage.

But much more important than what America thinks, at home in Pakistan, the frustration people feel about a political landscape dominated by corrupt dynastic politics, an interfering army and relentless disrespect, has been creeping toward anger that is now bordering on fury.

Pakistan’s military has ruled Pakistan for much of its 77-year history either directly or indirectly. The army in fact helped bring Khan to power in 2018 just as it orchestrated his predecessor, Nawas Sharif’s ouster. The rift between the military and its chosen politicians usually begins when the politicians start to act like they actually run the country and dare to defy the army’s wishes.

Take the current rulers, the Sharifs and Bhuttos. Neither the late Benazir Bhutto, nor her father, who was hanged by a military ruler, were favorites of the army but twice she was returned to power with their help and twice ousted, also with their help. Nawaz Sharif was a favorite of the army until he dared to challenge their rule and was ousted.

They opened the door for Imran Khan. But after three years Khan began to behave as if he could make decisions independent of Gen. Bajwa, the army chief. Now the Sharifs are back, though instead of Nawaz, it is his brother Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister and his daughter Maryam as chief minister of the country’s most powerful and populous Punjab province.

A different Pakistan

Even if today’s political leadership in Pakistan looks like yesterday’s, dominated by the Sharifs and the Bhuttos and run by the army, it is a different Pakistan.

In the February election that followed Khan’s ouster, which the military and its political allies sought to manipulate, Khan’s supporters won a major victory. Even as Khan’s party was not allowed on the ballot, independent candidates representing his party, on a platform of challenging the army in politics and holding the corrupt accountable, won big. It was a first for Pakistan.

The electorate, which has always been savvy, has also been resigned to the status quo and an arrogant leadership has always written them off as uneducated, and easily manipulated.

But no more in this different Pakistan, in large part because of a younger generation, more widely educated and rooted in their country rather than abroad. The time is gone in Pakistan where post secondary education abroad by the country’s elite defines the educated.

Today in Pakistan universities have proliferated and where in 2000 there were about 1 million post secondary students, in 2020 there were nearly 5 million and they have expectations, and they are also more political. But it is also the 30 and 40 year olds, generations of Pakistanis who are frustrated with the lifestyle of the rich and corrupt, and of a military they increasingly see in a similar light.

Gallup Pakistan published an interesting election day and post election day survey which said: “Turnout among youth rises considerably in 2024; PTI popularity among first time voters and relatively educated segments made it the highest vote-puller in the country.” It went on to say 31% of the electorate voted for the PTI, running as independents, followed by the Sharif’s party that took 24% of the vote.

While political manipulation and rigging has characterized most past elections in Pakistan, social media and an explosion of local media shone a bright light on the seat stealing this time around.

Add to the changing mix in Pakistan is a more aggressively independent judiciary that has in the past given cover to military rule and bowed to the powerful. But that too is changing.In a rare show of defiance five judges signed a letter demanding the military and its intelligence wing stop trying to influence court rulings. Judicial rulings also challenged a suspect Election Commission’s actions.

The judiciary, like Parliament, is still weak after successive bouts of military rule but there are changes and while it might be one step forward and two steps back, it is going forward.

But mostly it is that the people want more. They are demanding respect from their leaders, and for their rights and their needs to be recognized and met.

Fundamental to the changes in Pakistan is a desire and increasingly a demand that future elections be decided on how well the country’s politicians perform for the people, rather than on how well they perform for themselves and the country’s “other power.”

(The writer is a longtime former correspondent and bureau chief for the Associated Press in Pakistan and Afghanistan and a member of the Sapan News Advisory Council. By special arrangement with Sapan/ Substack)