The year in which May 9 happened

KARACHI: If there were one word to describe Pakistan in 2023, it would be ‘uncertain’. Amid a dire economic slump in the country, it also faced a relentless onslaught of political chaos and uncertainty, a resurgence of terrorism, the usual -- and some additional -- human rights alarms, an unquiet judiciary, and a caretaker setup that critics say must not overstay its welcome any longer.

Politics: First, the sliver of silver lining on offer: in the first week of November, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) announced that the general elections in the country would be held on February 8, 2024. Much of November and December 2023 were spent as a consequence of this announcement. Whether in arrests, bail pleas, intraparty elections, or otherwise, at the end of this year, Election 2024 was threatening to overshadow the main political story of the year till now. For Pakistan in 2023, politics came to a sharp turning point following the arrest of Imran Khan on May 9. Known now as the ‘May 9 riots’, the protests in reaction to Imran Khan’s -- and the state’s reaction to them -- coloured much of the rest of 2023.

The year had led with chaos right from January 2023, which saw the dissolution of the Punjab Assembly and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, followed by the appointment of caretaker chief ministers in both provinces. Post-May 9 Pakistan’s headlines were dominated by a swift crackdown on the May 9 protesters, and what political observers have been calling a dismantling of the PTI as a party. June 2023 saw the formation of the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party by former PTI leader Jahangir Tareen. The IPP became a parking ground for many defectors from the PTI.

It was not smooth sailing on this count though, with voices being raised from May through December regarding reported instances of political persecution including what PTI supporters said were ‘forced’ press conferences by ‘defectors’.

In the first week of August, Imran Khan was arrested again -- he had previously been granted bail -- in a graft case. He has since remained incarcerated. The previous PDM coalition government’s tenure came to an end soon after that when President Arif Alvi dissolved the National Assembly on the advice of former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif. The caretaker setup that followed, and which remains in place as the new year starts, is headed by Caretaker PM Anwaar ul Haq Kakar.

The third big political event for the country would be the return of PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif on October 21. Sharif returned to a political landscape far different from what he left it as. Despite Imran being behind bars, the last few months of 2023 saw a spate of arrests of PTI leaders, defections by PTI leaders, and some PTI politicians still ‘in hiding’ as the country enters the new year.

Terrorism: This year terror returned to Pakistan, the country facing a surge in militant attacks, with more than 700 security forces and civilians killed in the first nine months of the year. The Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies reported a 67 per cent increase in attacks compared to the previous year, highlighting the growing threat of terrorism in the country. With the country grappling with its domestic terror issues, in the last two days of 2023, India made a formal request for the extradition of Hafiz Saeed, a demand Pakistan’s Foreign Office has said it does not need to fulfil since both countries don’t share an extradition treaty.

Judiciary: This year will also be remembered for an active judicial front, the most prominent story being Justice Qazi Faez Isa taking oath as the 29th chief justice of Pakistan in September. There was a spate of cases related to elections and the judiciary, right from the start of the year. On February 22, former CJ Umar Ata Bandial took suo-motu notice of the delay in announcing the date for elections for the Punjab and KP assemblies. The Supreme Court gave a majority decision in the matter on March 1, validating the date announced by the president, and asking the ECP to follow its order. That did not happen, until the November announcement for a country-wide general election next year in February.

The Supreme Court also took on laws related to the apex court’s powers. The PDM-enacted Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act 2023 was suspended by the CJ Bandial-led Supreme Court on April 13 this year -- a measure undone when Chief Justice Faez Isa took oath and formed a full court hearing into the law, in the first-ever live-streamed Supreme Court case. The Supreme Court upheld and ‘sustained’ the SC (Practice and Procedure) Act with a 10-5 majority.

Post-May 9 court cases included petitions against trying civilians in military courts. In the last week of October this year, the Supreme Court issued a landmark verdict, declaring the trial of civilians in military courts as unconstitutional and a violation of fundamental rights. The military courts issue was not yet put to rest, however, and on December 13, a six-member bench of the apex court conditionally approved military court trials of those charged with the May 9 riots.

Human rights and censorship: Apart from politics and law and order, Pakistan also witnessed a breakdown of other systems of governance. Right at the beginning of the year on January 23, a major power outage left millions without electricity. Human rights too suffered along with other governance indicators. On August 16, hundreds of people attacked the Christian community in Jaranwala in Punjab, accusing two Christians of having committed blasphemy.

The PDM government continued with censorship policies, banning Wikipedia for three days in February for alleged blasphemous content. Internet and mobile access kept being revoked through the year, the worst of which came during and after the May 9 riots when mobile internet coverage was suspended for four days; access to social media sites was also reported to have been restricted. On December 17, under the caretaker government, an internet ‘slowdown’ was experienced in the country for a few hours, with users complaining they could not access social media sites. This documented disruption was attributed to a virtual jalsa organised by the PTI.

Much like the rest of the world, refugees in Pakistan too bore the brunt of state policies. In September, the caretaker government suddenly announced it would be deporting over one million Afghan refugees by the government. The government has since extended the deadline for repatriation to February next year. According to media reports, more than 450,000 people have returned to Afghanistan since the deportations began in October.

Protests will follow Pakistan into the new year too it seems, the latest being the ongoing Baloch protest in Islamabad that saw the police launch a crackdown and make several arrests of protesters.

Climate change and the environment: The devastation of the 2022 floods continued in 2023, with Unicef saying that millions of children continue to need humanitarian assistance and access to essential services. Lahore continued to feature time and again in the unenviable top slot in the world’s most polluted cities in 2023 as well. In an alarming study, Fair Finance Pakistan estimated that air pollution leads to at least 128,000 deaths in Pakistan every year while the Air Quality Life Index estimated that air pollution in Pakistan shortens average life expectancy by 3.9 years -- Lahore the worst affected with its life expectancy cut by seven years. A result of the continuing smog in the city saw Lahore’s authorities trying to induce better air quality through artificial rain in December.

In an already dark year, literature, art, and theatre in Pakistan lost two of their best in 2023 with the passing away of thespians Zia Mohyedin and Shoaib Hashmi