Human rights groups and independent monitors in Pakistan cast aspersions Monday on the integrity and credibility of the February 8 parliamentary elections, citing a military-backed government crackdown on a mainstream political party and increased media censorship.
The crackdown is targeted at jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, rated as the country's largest political party, according to public polls.
"At this point, there is little evidence to show that the upcoming elections will be free, fair or credible," Munizae Jahangir, the co-chairperson of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told a news conference in Islamabad.
"Foremost is the blatant manipulation of the electoral landscape in which one political party, among others, has been singled out for systematic dismemberment," she stated while referring to what she denounced as the unlawful crackdown on the PTI.
"I think that there is no doubt in anybody's mind that the strings of this country are being pulled by the military," Jahangir said when asked to explain whether the powerful Pakistani military was influencing the electoral process in the run up to the polls.
The caretaker government of Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, required to ensure transparency and fairness in the upcoming elections, is being consistently accused of working in favor of pro-military political parties.
Murtaza Solangi, the Pakistani information minister, rejected the charges Monday, saying his government was committed to assisting the country's independent election commission in transparently organizing the polls.
Jahangir also criticized election authorities for rejecting the candidacies of Khan and most of his party members on "flimsy grounds" and denounced "the unlawful" crackdown against the PTI.
"This has assumed a familiar pattern, including arrests of party workers and supporters, lack of transparency concerning the charges involved, crackdowns on party workers' right to peaceful assembly, enforced disappearances, obvious signs of pressure on party leaders to resign or exit politics altogether and, most recently, the large-scale rejection of candidates' nomination papers," Jahangir noted.
Several other political parties have also been "subjected to similar tactics to varying degrees," and the "clampdown on dissent has further constricted civic spaces" in Pakistan when people need to express their views before the elections freely, she stressed.
The state-run media quoted Solangi as claiming that the government "had nothing to do with the acceptance or rejection of the nomination papers" of PTI candidates, calling the process in line with the constitution.
Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at Washington's Wilson Center, cautioned against eliminating or limiting PTI's participation in the elections, saying it would not lead to political stability in Pakistan.
"After all, PTI enjoys mass support and is likely Pakistan's most popular political party. Sidelining it from the polls would not appease a highly aggrieved public," Kugelman told VOA in written comments.
"For the international community, including the West, the expectation and desire is for an election that is relatively stable and free of violence," Kugelman told VOA.
"Inclusivity is not necessarily an electoral condition that it will insist on. This suggests that elections, minus PTI, would be acceptable to the international community so long as they don't result in unrest," he said.
An opposition-led parliamentary no-confidence motion removed cricket star-turned-Prime Minister Khan from office in April 2022. He rejected the move as illegal, alleging the military orchestrated it at the behest of the United States to topple his government. Washington and Islamabad deny the charges.
The deposed 71-year-old Pakistani leader has since faced dozens of charges, including graft, murder and leaking state secrets. Khan was convicted and sentenced to three years for corruption last August.
He rejects all the charges, saying the military has fabricated them to block his return to power and undermine his party's popularity. Khan and his party also face an unannounced ban on mainstream Pakistani TV news channels.
Elections officials declined Khan's nomination papers last week, saying laws bar a convicted person from running for public office.
"Fears that next month's general elections will be reduced to an undemocratic farce have gained traction with the seemingly wholesale rejection of PTI candidates at the scrutiny stage," the English-language Dawn newspaper said in an editorial Monday.
"Canceling a mainstream party through arrests and intimidation, and now technicalities at the pre-poll stage, flies in the face of democracy," the paper wrote.
Nonprofit Free and Fair Election Network, or FAFEN, which promotes good governance and fair elections in Pakistan, urged the election commission to publicly release its objections and eventual rejections of candidates' nomination papers to help strengthen electoral transparency.
"This measure will not only reinforce the transparency of the electoral process but also serve as a safeguard to its credibility against the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation that often stems from incomplete information," said a FAFEN statement Monday.
The military denies it interferes with the election process or political matters, but critics dismiss it as mere claims. The security institute has ruled Pakistan for more than three decades after ousting elected governments in military coups.
The interventions have weakened democratic practices in Pakistan and allowed generals to influence decision-making even when not in power, say former prime ministers and independent observers.
