The Economist April 16th 2022 Leaders 13W
hen pakistan’stopbrasshelpedinstallImranKhanas
prime minister in 2018, the former cricket champion
seemed like the perfect front man. He was a sporting hero, dash
ing and cosmopolitan. Even so, he had cultivated a folksy, pious
air, along with a streak of indignant nationalism that could fire
up a rally. His party looked different from the tiresome old lot,
which are run as fiefs by political dynasties. His attack on the en
tire political class as irretrievably corrupt dovetailed helpfully
with the work of the aptly named nab, or National Accountabil
ity Bureau, which was trying to put an end to one of those dynas
ties by prosecuting Nawaz Sharif, the outgoing prime minister.
Most important, Mr Khan cheerfully did what the armed forc
es wanted, be it cosying up to China and rich
Arab states or playing the West as the army qui
etly helped the Taliban return to power in Af
ghanistan. The “miltablishment”, as Pakistani
wags call it, seemed to have landed on exactly
what it was looking for: a plausible yet pliable
manager, who would give the army the final say
on anything it cared about, but could still take
the blame for whatever went wrong.
Yet Mr Khan, predictably, turned out not to be infinitely mal
leable; he soon developed illusions about his own importance.
Last autumn he tried to block Qamar Javed Bajwa, the country’s
most senior general, from putting a new man in charge of the in
telligence service. Mr Khan’s electoral success had depended on
the scheming of the previous chap, and soaring inflation and a
faltering economy were doubtless making him twitchy with
new elections due next year.
Magically, the same political barons whose defection to Mr
Khan’s camp had brought him to office suddenly recanted, and
switched allegiance back to the Sharif family. Mr Khan was
thrown out in a noconfidence motion in the early hours of April10th.ShehbazSharif(pictured),theyounger brother of Nawaz,
was sworn in as prime minister on April 11th (see Asia section).
The generals will be glad to be rid of Mr Khan. They seem to
have changed their minds on several fronts. They appear keen to
shift Pakistan away from Mr Khan’s antiWestern posture and
undo the perception that the country is China’s poodle. They al
so seem wary of Pakistan’s tilt towards extremism, not helped by
Mr Khan’s strident Islamist rhetoric.
But what the generals may consider a success is really a de
feat, in that it shows that the system they have created is inher
ently unstable. For one thing, it is hard to be prime minister, and
to be called “boss” by the army chief, and not begin to think that
you should have some say in how the country is
run. The older Mr Sharif, too, started out in poli
tics as a protégé of the generals before getting
ideas above his station.
What is more, it is not clear how much lee
way the new prime minister has, or whom the
generals will turn to next if he, too, rubs them
up the wrong way. The popular support the ar
my ginned up for Mr Khan has not disappeared.
Plenty of angry voters attended a rally he held to protest his loss
of power. The economy remains a mess and elections must still
take place in 2023. Further upheaval is inevitable.
Pakistan is not easy to run, as the army well knows. Its many
stints in direct control have all ended badly—hence its recent
practice of stepping back and trying to manage politics from be
hind the scenes. But this setup, too, is also doomed to fail. The
army’s overbearing influence means that politics is reduced to a
game. Governments do not have the authority to enact their own
policies. Political speech is understood as empty talk. The gener
als may believe they are simply applying a guidinghandto the
messy business of politics. In fact, they are saboteurs.nThe meddling generals should try letting politicians run the country for onceMismanaged democracy
PakistanF
or thethird time in the past 20 years a candidate of the hard
right has made it through to the runoff round of France’s
presidential election, causing much anxiety in liberal circles
across Europe and beyond. The panic is overdone. The French do
not much like their presidents, often relishing elections as an
opportunity to give an incumbent a good kick in the teeth. Only
two have been reelected since 1965. Bearing that in mind, Em
manuel Macron’s share of the vote on April 10th was close to a
triumph (see Europe section). At 27.9%, it was the highest first
round score attained by any incumbent since 1988, and almost
four points more than he got in 2017. That is testament to the
competence with which he has governed, boosting employment
and productivity and improving training and education whileavoiding major mishaps, despite the disruption of covid19.
Just as in 2017, Mr Macron will face Marine Le Pen in the run
off. Ms Le Pen has done a good job of rebranding herself and her
party. She focused her campaign on breadandbutter issues like
energy prices rather than only on toxic ones like immigration.
After her previous defeat she changed the name of her party
from the National Front, which she had inherited from her
overtly racist father, to the more mainstreamsounding Nation
al Rally. Even so, her share of the vote in the first round rose by
less than two points, to 23.2%.
From here it is much easier to see a path to a second term for
Mr Macron than an upset by Ms Le Pen. The president should
pick up most of the votes of the eliminated mainstream candiEmmanuel Macron still has the edge in the second roundDon’t panic
France’s presidential election