{"id":61823,"date":"2024-02-11T15:00:03","date_gmt":"2024-02-11T06:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2024\/feb\/11\/the-observer-view-on-pakistan-rejection-of-military-rule"},"modified":"2024-02-11T15:00:03","modified_gmt":"2024-02-11T06:00:03","slug":"the-observer-view-on-pakistan-voters-rejection-of-military-rule-observer-editorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=61823","title":{"rendered":"The Observer view on Pakistan voters\u2019 rejection of military rule | Observer editorial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week\u2019s elections are a cause for celebration in light of the military\u2019s decades-long stranglehold on power<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not often that Pakistanis find something to cheer about, given the severity of the country\u2019s cost of living, security, energy, employment and environmental problems \u2013 but the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/feb\/09\/pakistan-election-2024-results-delays\">results of last week\u2019s general election<\/a> are definitely worth celebrating. It is not so much the final outcome that matters: that remains uncertain. It is that voters turned out in huge numbers to exercise their democratic rights and successfully thwart the army\u2019s blatant efforts to steal the contest.<\/p>\n<p>With most results in, it is plain that Nawaz Sharif, a veteran former prime minister, and his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), have failed to secure the outright victory predicted by many analysts. Instead, independent candidates loyal to Imran Khan, jailed leader of the banned Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, won the most seats, with the once dominant Pakistan People\u2019s party (PPP) trailing in third place.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2024\/feb\/11\/the-observer-view-on-pakistan-rejection-of-military-rule\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week\u2019s elections are a cause for celebration in light of the military\u2019s decades-long stranglehold on powerIt\u2019s not often that Pakistanis find something to cheer about, given the severity of the country\u2019s cost of living, security, energy, employmen&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":363,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[359,60,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-imran-khan","category-pakistan","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/363"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61824,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61823\/revisions\/61824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}