Every few years, Pakistan performs its democratic ritual with rallies, ballots, and prime ministers sworn in with promises of reform. And every few years, the illusion fades. Power, as ever, lies elsewhere: in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, where the army writes the real script of the state.
The latest evidence of this has come through Financial Times, which reported that Pakistani officials have proposed that the United States help build a port at Pasni, a fishing town along the Arabian Sea. The plan to turn it into an export hub for critical minerals sounds like an economic project, but the real message is revealed by who the messenge is. It was not the civilian government making the offer, but the advisers to Field Marshal Asim Munir, the powerful Army Chief of Pakistan.
For those who have watched Pakistan’s politics long enough, that is hardly news. The country’s generals have spent decades stepping in when elected leaders stumble, reshaping constitutions, and reminding everyone who truly governs.
The Military Mindset
The army’s dominance is older than Pakistan’s democracy itself. Born from Partition’s chaos and defined by its early conflict with India over Kashmir, the new nation saw insecurity not as a challenge to be overcome but as its organising principle. The army became the most trusted, disciplined, and funded institution of the state, and soon, the most political.
Civilian politics, meanwhile, splintered into personality cults and patronage networks. Bureaucracies decayed, courts deferred, and parties fractured along ethnic lines. The military, disciplined and united, came to see itself as the nation’s only competent custodian and made a habit of intervention.
By 1958, General Ayub Khan had already normalised coups. His successors, Yahya Khan, Zia-ul-Haq, and Pervez Musharraf, each justified their takeover as patriotic duty. Each rewrote the constitution, leaving behind a system in which civilian governments looked temporary and the military eternal.
A State Within a State
Unlike most militaries, Pakistan’s armed forces do not merely consume the national budget; they also own a considerable part of it. Through the Fauji Foundation, Bahria Foundation, and Army Welfare Trust, the institution controls businesses in everything from cement and banking to real estate and fertilisers. Academic Ayesha Siddiqa once estimated these holdings account for more than seven per cent of GDP.
The privileges are reflected in the budget sheets. In 2024–25, Pakistan spent about 1.7 trillion rupees on defence, nearly twice what it allocated to health and education combined. In a country where the World Bank says 40 per cent of citizens live below the poverty line, this imbalance speaks volumes.
The Hybrid Habit
Pervez Musharraf’s coup on October 12, 1999 beyond toppling the government, created a political formula of his so-called “controlled democracy”, where elected civilians function under military supervision. This became Pakistan’s default setting.
Two decades later, that model is still intact. Imran Khan’s ascent in 2018 bore the army’s tacit blessing; his fall four years later carried its unmistakable shadow. Judicial rulings and parliamentary votes provided the theatre. The script, however, was military-authored.
Now, under Field Marshal Asim Munir, the choreography continues. The army influences economic decisions, security operations, and foreign outreach. The Pasni port proposal is only the latest reminder. It echoes Musharraf’s own bid to court Washington after 9/11, trading strategic cooperation for dollars and diplomatic favour.
Democracy On Short Leash
The civilian cost of this arrangement is visible everywhere. No prime minister has ever completed a full five-year term in Pakistan. Cabinets rotate, alliances splinter, and elected leaders defer to unelected authority. Those who resist, from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to Imran Khan, discover how swiftly the establishment can turn its machinery against them.
The consequences go beyond politics. Development stagnates, debt balloons, and social spending remains an afterthought. A system that rewards military stewardship inevitably starves the civilian state.
The generals present themselves as saviours of a nation they never truly allow to govern itself. Field Marshal Munir, like Musharraf before him, seeks Western engagement to manage an economic crisis and reassert the military’s indispensability. The playbook hasn’t changed; only the vocabulary has. “Reform,” “stability,” and “investment” have replaced “security,” “order,” and “rescue,” but the logic remains the same.
Until power truly shifts from the cantonment to the parliament, Pakistan will continue to live under the same unwritten constitution where the generals rule, and the civilians serve at their pleasure.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: ZEE News
