Najam in NYT on Pakistan Military and Elections 2024

Dean Emeritus and Professor at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies Adil Najam tells The New York Times (February 21, 2024) that the fractured and disputed results of the recent elections in Pakistan have not only left the major political parties in Pakistan in a crisis, but have also turned into a headache and a crisis for the Pakistan military.

Najam was interviewed for a News Analysis titled ‘An Election Shatters the Image of Pakistan’s Mightiest Force,’ which argues that “Pakistanis once thought of the military as the iron hand controlling the country’s politics [but] that illusion has been broken, creating one of the establishment’s biggest crises yet.”

This argument builds on Najam’s analysis:

“This is the biggest institutional crisis that the military has ever faced in Pakistan,” said Adil Najam, a professor of international affairs at Boston University. “It is not just that their strategy failed. It’s that the ability of the military to define Pakistan’s politics is now in question.”

And the article, which can be read in full here, concludes with this quote from Prof. Adil Najam.

“What’s unfolding in front of us is something that will lead to a new model of the military’s relationship with politics and society,” Mr. Najam, the professor at Boston University, said. “We don’t know what that will be. But what we know is that the military will remain a force in politics.”