Eight scenarios for the 2018 elections
There has been considerable concern about the level of engineering behind these elections. Which is of course fair enough. Nevertheless, it bears mentioning that the outcome of this election is still technically up in the air. This is not a Stalin or Saddam style rigging project. As much as GHQ has tilted the playing field in the last few months, Pakistani voters still exercise agency . The generals have had their say, but on July 25, the people get a go. While it is reasonable to surmise that the establishment's efforts have made the entire thing foreordained, I think there's still some grey area, if only because we know (hope?) that full-blown ballot stuffing and miscounting of votes is not on the cards. With that in mind, I've tried to think through a few educated guesses of what the world may look like. Before I lay those out, some major caveats: 1. The data is limited, both in how much there is and how good it is 2. Even if the data were great, no one