Without a coup, Pakistan’s military has grabbed permanent rule

Salman Rafi Sheikh is assistant professor of politics at the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Lahore University of Management Sciences.

In 2024, Pakistan’s security forces conducted 59,775 intelligence-based operations targeting Islamist militants and Baloch separatists. More than anything else, the scale of these operations not only indicates the military’s control of national security but also its capability to impose a military solution on issues that could be resolved through political means or by strengthening civilian institutions, such as the Counterterrorism Department.

This pattern is a direct result of the military’s sustained political dominance in Pakistan over several decades. More recently, this ascendancy has reached unprecedented levels, largely due to the military’s manipulation of electoral processes to ensure civilian governments remain dependent on the military for survival.

Unlike previous military coups, which saw brief stints of direct military rule, the military’s role in Pakistan today is legally institutionalized, both politically and economically. At the helm of this legalization is not a military dictator but an elected civilian government. A clear example of this pattern of militarized governance is the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC). Established in June 2023 via a parliamentary act, the SIFC includes several high-ranking and serving military officials, including the chief of the army staff (COAS), and serves as a “single window” for securing international investments and overseeing domestic economic projects. Importantly, it enjoys broad immunity, protecting its members from legal scrutiny and accountability.

The SIFC’s activities provide a much deeper glimpse into the military’s expanding political and economic footprint. In February 2024, Pakistan’s chief justice called for the federal government to ensure that the military’s focus remained strictly on defense matters — a reference to the military’s multibillion-dollar business empire being run via 50 commercial companies. The army also owns Pakistan’s largest housing society. The SIFC also blatantly proceeded to allocate 4.8 million acres of land for military-run corporate farming as part of the Green Pakistan Initiative in August 2024, signaling further military entrenchment in Pakistan’s political economy.

Pakistani soldiers are pictured on a tank during the Pakistan Day military parade in Islamabad on March 23, 2022.   © Reuters

More importantly, this expanding influence comes at the expense of established constitutional bodies and Pakistan’s federal structure. For instance, while the Council of Common Interests (CCI) — responsible for decisions on joint federal-provincial matters — has not convened even once since the current government took office after the controversial general election in 2024, the SIFC has met on at least 10 occasions. One of its decisions, which otherwise requires the CCI’s consent, was the construction of six new canals on Pakistan’s rivers to support military-run corporate farming.

This pattern of bypassing civilian institutions underscores the military’s growing (and legally entrenched) political and economic influence. In 2023, Pakistan’s parliament amended the Army Act, formalizing the military’s role in administering state functions and creating space for institutions like the SIFC, as well as for the appointment of retired military officials to civilian posts.

To make sure that these laws and institutions are permanently protected, the military-backed regime passed the 26th constitutional amendment in 2024 to ensure the judiciary’s subordination. Among other things, a key change involves the procedure for appointing the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Before the amendment, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court would become the chief.

A parliamentary commission is now authorized to select the chief justice from among the three most senior judges. Dominated by the ruling coalition, which relies on military support, this system of so-called parliamentary oversight ensures that the chosen judge prioritizes the regime’s and the military interests. Unsurprisingly, after the new chief justice was appointed under this procedure, the Supreme Court ruled in late 2024 that the military could not only operate military courts but could also conduct civilian trials — effectively establishing a parallel judicial system.

At the same time, the military’s expansion has been criticized. Instead of reforming itself as a professional force, the military’s response has been to both criminalize dissent and normalize military domination.

Criminalization of dissent, putting severe limits on freedom of expression, has taken place via recent changes to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act. Still, army top brass have been touring universities to “engage” with the youth, Pakistan’s largest demographic group. Being privy to the details of one such tour allows me to describe them as an effort by the military to propagate notions of the militarization of politics as the new normal in Pakistan — i.e., something that is legal and must not be challenged.

This new normal, however, is not a coincidence. In many ways, it is due to Pakistan’s structurally and politically weak political parties and their perpetual tendency to rely on the military for winning political power.

The price that Pakistan is paying for this fatal mistake is permanent military rule. Unless civilians decide to build and use an alternative, such as genuinely electoral paths to power, the military is here to stay. This keeps Pakistan’s governance undemocratic to its core.

The article appeared in the asia.nikkei