EVOLUTION OF THE CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONSHIP IN PAKISTAN IN THE POST-COVID ERA

Pakistan has been ruled by military regimes for almost half of its history. Since the first coup in 1958, the military has experimented with a variety of political strategies and models of civil-military relations, including purely military rule and various forms of hybrid regimes. The military's attitude toward Islam has also evolved over time. Since 1947, the military has recognized the role of religion as the basis of national identity and has sought to integrate it into official propaganda despite the diversity of conceptions. The nature of the relationship between political parties and the military underlies recent political evolution. The 2018 general elections saw Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) prevail in large part due to the support it received from the military establishment. The military chose to support PTI as an alternative to the two main national parties, the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), with which the military has been at odds for nearly two decades. However, the 2018 elections showed that the military's ability to control the political scene is limited. Indeed, the PML-N and PPP have maintained their traditional strongholds in Punjab and Sind. Despite the support of the military, the PTI only managed to prevail in the elections with a slight majority. The crisis of Imran Khan's government between 2020 and 2022 was due to three main factors: divisions between the parties in the ruling coalition; mismanagement of the emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic; and the PTI and military's differing view of economic cooperation with Beijing and particularly the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. This situation led to a conflict between PTI and the military and the no-confidence vote in parliament in April 2022 that ousted Imran Khan from power.