How Pakistani military is rewriting nation’s democracy (IANS Analysis)
New Delhi – December 4 (LatestNewsX)
Pakistan is experiencing a quiet reshaping of its constitution, one that isn’t triggered by loud protests but by a steady, methodical push from a growing‑assertive army, backed by political parties eager to go along. The aim is to turn the country into a hybrid authoritarian state where the military sits at the top while civilian leaders keep a largely cosmetic role.
At the heart of this shift is Field Marshal Asim Munir, widely regarded as the most influential Pakistanis Army chief. Under his command the service has moved beyond its old, occasional interventions and coups, seeking instead a permanent position in the legal, bureaucratic and constitutional frameworks.
The transformation didn’t happen in an instant. It began with small tweaks to the armed forces’ laws in 2023—changes that all parties in the National Assembly accepted without objection. Those amendments widened the jurisdiction of military courts so that civilians could now be tried before them. The move followed the violent anti‑government protests on May 9, 2023, when demonstrators attacked dozens of army bases across the country, including those in Lahore and Peshawar.
High‑profile targets of this expanding legal reach have included former prime minister Imran Khan, who remains imprisoned with his wife, Bushra Bibi, amid a slew of cases critics say are politically motivated rather than judicially necessary. From that point, the army’s influence seeped further into civilian life.
Munir’s strategy has involved deploying senior officers to key civilian institutions like NADRA, WAPDA and SUPARCO. In a clear indicator of the new order, Lieutenant‑General Asim Malik—currently the head of the ISI—was also appointed National Security Adviser, erasing the old boundary that the post used to bridge between civilian rule and military command.
The most radical restructuring came through constitutional amendments. The 26th Amendment, ratified late last year, lengthened the term for service chiefs from three to five years, with possible extensions matching that period. This gives a single army chief the power to shape the country for over a decade—Munir, for example, could remain in charge until at least 2032.
Simultaneously, the amendment broadened the government’s control over the judiciary, tightening the process of appointing judges and tightening administrative oversight—areas that had been the last legal refuge against military influence. The 27th Amendment went even further. It formalized the title of Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), elevating the Army Chief to overall commander of Pakistan’s armed forces, and granted him a larger role in overseeing the country’s nuclear arsenal—a responsibility that had previously rested with a prime‑minister‑led strategic command.
While Pakistan has long been a nuclear‑armed state under strict military oversight, codifying this role signals an irreversible shift. Civilian scrutiny, already weak, has now been further eroded.
Military dominance has a long history in Pakistan. From Ayub Khan to Zia ul‑Haq and Pervez Musharraf, each reshaped politics after a coup. What sets the current trend apart is how smoothly leading political parties have not only accepted but actively supported the takeover, providing covert or overt assistance.
The 27th Amendment also split the Supreme Court’s role by creating a Federal Constitutional Court, thereby stripping the former of essential discretionary powers like suo moto. The timing and intent are clear: the amendment curtails the Supreme Court’s ability to check the military’s legal agenda, reducing the judiciary to an instrument that legitimises the very changes it once could have contested.
In this environment, political parties play the role of facilitators. Instead of resisting the military’s gradual encroachment, they seem to be competing for its backing, making civilian leadership conditional on military approval. Take the Pakistan Muslim League‑Nawaz (PML‑N). The party capitalised on the army‑backed ouster of Imran Khan’s government in 2022; Shehbaz Sharif became prime minister for the rest of that assembly’s term. During that period, the PML‑N government also appointed Asim Munir as Army Chief, bypassing many senior officers. The party’s payoff followed when it benefited from the military’s electoral engineering during the contentious 2024 general elections, enabling Shehbaz Sharif to form a new government.
The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), once a champion of civilian resistance, now acts in parallel with PML‑N to aid the military’s entrenchment. The result is a political scene where parties seem to relinquish the pursuit of popular mandate, accountability and genuine democratic legitimacy, favouring instead proximity to the military. The trappings of democracy persist, but the axis of power has decisively shifted toward the army. This creates a managed system where rituals may remain while outcomes are predetermined, carrying far‑reaching consequences.
Pakistan has long struggled to balance civilian authority with military dominance, but today the political elite willingly enable the army’s creeping consolidation. The veneer of democratic governance is peeled away not in one dramatic collapse but through a series of amendments, appointments, legal reforms and political bargains—destroyed piece by piece.
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