Pakistan’s Youth Empowers Imran Khan’s Party with Historic Election Surprise

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan

The actions taken against former prime minister Imran Khan’s political party in recent months followed a familiar playbook for a disgraced political movement in Pakistan. Khan was jailed on charges that his supporters say were politically motivated, party offices were raided, and its election efforts were ignored by TV networks.

Overcoming Challenges

But the apparent campaign to dismantle Khan’s party, it now appears, may have vastly underestimated the generation that followed Khan online and not on television, and that already accounts for around half of all voters in this nuclear-armed country of 240 million.

On Thursday, millions of young voters rallied behind the party they said the establishment was most determined to keep down. Pakistan’s youth delivered the biggest election surprise in this country in half a century, with candidates backed by Khan gaining more seats than any other party in Parliament.

New Strategies for a Changing Political Landscape

“The election results have shown one thing: The old playbook won’t do anymore,” said Mohammad Malick, a Pakistani political analyst. “If the army still wants to keep its influence and stay involved, it will have to adopt different tactics.”

For now, Khan’s party is unlikely to return to power anytime soon. Despite its performance being well above expectations, it fell short of an absolute majority in Parliament and has no obvious coalition partners after falling out of favor with the political system.

As expected, three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s party announced Tuesday that it is set to form a government with the backing of the Pakistan People’s Party and smaller parties, which have the tacit approval of the establishment.

The Rising Influence of the Youth

While the PTI’s campaign struck a nerve with digital-savvy young voters by putting them at the center of their messaging, Khan’s main political rivals failed to grasp the magnitude of this election’s generational challenge, said Malick.

When Sharif, another Pakistani ex-leader who had run afoul of the military, returned from self-exile in October after appearing to have reconciled with the army, his speeches were all “about him, not about the youth,” Malick said.

Zulfi Bukhari, a PTI spokesman, said in an interview that a preliminary analysis of voter profiles suggests that the strategy of Khan’s party worked. “A whole new population — they all voted for PTI.”

Rural Empowerment through Digital Platforms

Some reasons for the frustration of Pakistan’s youth could fade if circumstances change. Many are fed up with economic uncertainty and stagnation, which they blame on corruption and family dynasties like the Sharifs that have dominated Pakistani politics for decades.

But never have those sentiments been voiced so cynically and so publicly than on Pakistani social media over the past days, potentially straining the delicate balance between civilian leaders and Pakistan’s powerful military in ways that could be felt for a long time.

In one potential indication for how the establishment could turn against digital spaces, mobile internet was suddenly suspended nationwide as voters began heading to vote on Thursday, and it remained cut off long after polls closed. While Khan’s supporters suspect that this was part of an effort to derail the party’s plans to mobilize voters and to document alleged electoral fraud, Pakistani authorities have justified the shutdown by citing the risk of terrorist attacks potentially powered by mobile internet.

Shaping the Future of Pakistani Politics

Pakistan’s military leadership has repeatedly denied allegations of a crackdown against the PTI and has maintained that it does not get involved in Pakistani politics.

But the PTI and its supporters say that rather than being a threat, the internet could make Pakistan’s political debate more informed. TikTok in particular has played a major role in mobilizing rural youth, said Jibran Ilyas, who helps to direct the PTI’s social media efforts. Through TikTok, the party was able to reach millions of illiterate voters who don’t use Facebook and other text-heavy platforms.

Asim Amin, 22, who lives in rural northwestern Pakistan, said TikTok opened his eyes about Khan in the lead-up to the election. Even though the jailed candidate could not campaign in person, Amin followed his party’s videos on health care and the economy.

“Khan is the true leader of the country,” he said.

For Malick, the political analyst, last week’s election result signals that Pakistani parties will need to work harder to win votes in the future. “This is the first election where the candidate was not seeking the voter, but actually the voter was seeking the candidate.”