Dr Zafar Khan <\/p>\n
Pakistan held elections in February 2024. Millions of citizens voted, results were declared, a parliament was formed, and a prime minister was sworn in. By every formal measure, democracy was observed. What those elections did not produce, and what no Pakistani election in recent memory has produced, is a government that actually governs. The hybrid system that once placed civilian politicians in the foreground while the army operated the real levers of authority has given way to something closer to unvarnished military primacy. Increasingly, Pakistan\u2019s governing arrangement has come to be described as a hybrid-plus system, suggesting that even the civilian fa\u00e7ade has grown thinner over an underlying military reality.
\nIn 2025, Pakistan completed a decisive consolidation of military power while reviving its relevance as a regional stakeholder. Democratic institutions weakened as parliament and the judiciary transferred further authority to the armed forces. The 26th Constitutional Amendment, passed in October 2024, reduced Supreme Court independence at the precise moment when judicial scrutiny had become inconvenient for those in power. Civil-military relations in Pakistan have historically remained tenuous due to persistent military dominance and intervention in civilian affairs, with democratic sustainability and civilian autonomy remaining elusive despite formal elections. The research, published in Defence Studies in March 2026, concluded what most Pakistanis already know from experience: that democratic transitions in 2013, 2018 and 2024 signalled civilian supremacy in theory while the reality suggested otherwise.
\nThe economic consequences of this arrangement are quantifiable and severe. A peer-reviewed study published in 2025 concluded that growing military involvement, unceasing political crises, and deepening economic grievances are jointly endogenous, meaning each makes the others worse, and that Pakistan needs to eliminate military involvement from its political fabric to restore the stability that economic growth requires. The IMF has now supervised twenty-four Pakistani programmes since 1958, each one addressing fiscal symptoms while the underlying political economy, in which a military establishment with extensive business interests shapes economic policy to protect those interests, remains untouched. Debt servicing consumed 89% of net federal revenue in FY2025. Defence expenditure has grown consistently even as development spending was compressed to satisfy IMF conditionalities. A state that allocates its scarce fiscal resources through a political hierarchy in which military\u2019s preferences carry more institutional weight than the elected parliament\u2019s budget committee is not going to allocate them in ways that maximise civilian welfare, and the data confirms it has not.
\nThe security justification for military dominance has genuine merit and genuine limits. The year 2025 will be remembered as a defining period for Pakistan\u2019s armed forces operating in an increasingly complex internal and regional security environment, with insurgent activity in Balochistan persisting and the army supporting development and stabilisation initiatives in coordination with civilian authorities. Pakistan genuinely faces threats that most democracies do not: a hostile eastern border, a destabilised western one, nuclear-armed neighbours in active competition, and an internal terrorism challenge that killed over a thousand people in the first half of 2026 alone. These are real threats that require a capable military. They do not require, and have never required, that the military determine who governs, which political parties are permitted to function, and which judicial decisions stand. The conflation of national security with institutional dominance is the oldest justification for military overreach, and Pakistan has been living inside it for so long that challenging it has come to feel like challenging gravity.
\nThe military further consolidated its institutional role within the state as political space continued to narrow. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, assessing South Asia\u2019s civil-military dynamics in April 2026, observed that militaries across the region are assuming a renewed and often decisive role in shaping political outcomes. In Pakistan, familiar description of a hybrid system has increasingly given way to perceptions of a more entrenched governing arrangement, with the balance of power appearing more clearly defined than before.
\nThe international dimension has complicated rather than resolved this trajectory. Pakistan\u2019s strategic relevance in 2025 and 2026, as a counterterrorism partner, as a mediator between the United States and Iran, and as a nuclear-armed buffer between competing great power interests, has given its military establishment exactly the external validation it needs to sustain domestic arrangements that would otherwise face stronger international pressure. Washington applauds Pakistan\u2019s counterterrorism successes, funds its security cooperation, and carefully avoids the language of democratic backsliding that it applies to less strategically convenient countries. The result is an international environment that rewards Pakistan\u2019s military for its security contributions while imposing no meaningful cost for its political ones.
\nNo institution derives permanent legitimacy from historical necessity. Pakistan\u2019s military has undeniable achievements in defending the country\u2019s borders, combating terrorism at immense human cost, and responding to natural disasters when civilian capacity has fallen short. These are vital national contributions. They do not, however, replace the constitutional principle that political authority ultimately rests with elected civilian institutions. The challenge facing Pakistan today is not simply the existence of a hybrid arrangement, but its gradual normalization. As the distinction between constitutional authority and the practical exercise of power becomes increasingly blurred, restoring that balance is essential not only for democratic legitimacy but also for the long-term strength and stability of the state.<\/p>\n
The writer is Ph.D in Political Science and visiting faculty at QAU Islamabad. His area of specialization is political development and social change. He can be reached at zafarkhansafdar@yahoo.com and tweet@zafarkhansafdar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dr Zafar Khan Pakistan held elections in February 2024. Millions of citizens voted, results were declared, a parliament was formed, and a prime minister was sworn in. By every formal measure, democracy was observed. What those elections did not produce, and what no Pakistani election in recent memory has produced, is a government that actually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[13244],"class_list":["post-564951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-article","tag-dr-zafar-khan"],"yoast_head":"\n