The prime minister holds most executive power under the constitution. In March 2024, Shehbaz Sharif of the PML-N was elected prime minister for a second term by the National Assembly that was formed after elections the previous month. The elections were held after a concerted campaign by the military establishment to weaken former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his PTI, which saw Khan jailed and his party prevented from fielding official candidates.

The president plays a more symbolic role as head of state and is elected for up to two five-year terms by an electoral college comprising the two chambers of the parliament and the provincial assemblies. A month after February 2024’s general election, the electoral college elected PPP’s Asif Zardari to serve his second term as president.

The parliament consists of a 342-member National Assembly and a 100-member Senate. National Assembly members are elected for five years; 272 seats are filled through direct elections in single-member districts, 60 are reserved for women, and 10 are reserved for non-Muslim minorities. Reserved seats are filled via party-list proportional representation. The Senate consists of 96 members, with 23 elected from each of the four provinces, plus four elected from the Federal Territory, Islamabad. Senators serve six-year terms, with half of the seats being renewed every three years.

Candidates affiliated with Imran Khan’s PTI won 92 of the directly elected National Assembly seats in the February 2024 elections, ahead of Nawaz Sherif’s PML-N and Bilawal Bhutto’s PPP (54 seats). The PTI result was achieved despite multiple steps taken by civil and military authorities in the run-up to the election to hinder the party’s performance. These included the jailing of Imran Khan in 2023, jailing and intimidation of party officers and members, and a decision by the ECP preventing the PTI from officially nominating candidates in the general election and from using its well-known electoral symbol, a cricket bat. (Electoral symbols are relevant to Pakistan’s illiterate voters.) In response, PTI candidates stood as independents and, after being elected, rebadged themselves as members of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), a registered party that had not stood candidates. The elections were marred by vote-rigging allegations, an election-day internet shutdown, and instances of violence, including deadly bombing attacks in Baluchistan.

After the election, PML-N formed a governing coalition with the PPP and several minor parties, which nominated Shehbaz Sherif for a second term as prime minister. Twenty-two reserved seats were left unfilled after the ECP refused to grant the SIC a share.

In the April 2024 Senate elections, the PPP won the largest number of seats. This left the ruling coalition with 61 seats in the 96-member house, including the PPP’s 24 seats and the PML-N’s 19 seats.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 because the parliamentary elections were marred by the continued detention of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, a court ruling preventing the PTI from officially contesting the polls, internet restrictions, vote-rigging allegations, and violence.

Elections are administered by the ECP, whose members are current or retired senior judges nominated through a consultative process that includes the government and the parliamentary opposition. The ECP has asserted its independence in the past, electoral laws are considered largely fair, and candidates can address electoral disputes via the judiciary.

However, during the 2024 general election period, the ECP made a series of decisions that helped to exclude the PTI from formal participation in the election and which were favorable to the efforts by PTI’s rivals to form a coalition government. These decisions, which included the ECP in October 2022 barring Imran Khan for five years from holding public office, prompted concerns that the ECP deliberately cooperated with efforts, directed by the army, to suppress the PTI’s vote and exclude it from power.

Observer missions for the 2024 general election raised serious concerns about ECP officials’ handling of results sheets and discrepancies between polling-station-level results and the consolidated results announced by the ECP. These concerns precipitated calls for a general results audit, which was not held. Pakistani civil society organizations have reported that their independent audits indicate that ECP officials altered results in multiple constituencies to help governing-coalition candidates to defeat PTI.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 because the country’s electoral commission issued rulings impacting the PTI’s ability to contest the year’s elections and secure parliamentary representation.

Several major parties and numerous smaller parties and independents compete in elections and are represented in the parliament and provincial legislatures. However, free competition has been distorted through coercive and quasi-legal measures directed by the military against political actors who have fallen out of favor, and by the willingness of political parties to seek the military’s patronage. During 2024, the PTI was the party which suffered the most blatant obstacles its rise.

Opposition parties campaign and contest elections, which regularly result in transfers of power at the national level. National opposition parties also hold power or significant representation at the provincial and local levels. However, the military has long been considered more powerful than elected politicians and able to influence electoral outcomes.

Law enforcement mechanisms have repeatedly been abused to impede opposition parties. Under the 2018–22 PTI government, the PPP and PML-N faced a succession of corruption charges. After his own ouster as prime minister in 2022, Imran Khan faced similar treatment, culminating in his May 2023 arrest. Ahead of and after the 2024 general election, authorities, orchestrated by the army, imposed multiple restrictions on Imran Khan, other PTI leaders, and the party to ensure that they could not achieve a parliamentary majority to form a national government.

The military has reasserted its role as a political arbiter in recent years, proving more powerful than either the judiciary or the elected government. By restricting the PTI’s ability to participate in the February 2024 elections, the military achieved its objective of excluding the party from national power and installing a more pliant national administration. However, Pakistani democracy showed a degree of resilience when PTI voters defied efforts at suppression and the party was able to form a provincial administration in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Ordinary political activity is also impeded by violent attacks. The 2024 electoral process was most directly affected by violence in Baluchistan, where militant groups carried out more than two dozen bombing attacks on polling stations.

Members of non-Muslim minority groups are able to participate in general voting while also being represented through reserved party-list seats in the national and provincial assemblies. However, non-Muslims’ political participation remains marginal. Parties nominate members to the reserved seats, leaving voters with little say in the selection process. Ahmadis, members of a heterodox Muslim sect, face political discrimination and must register on a separate voter list that categorizes them as non-Muslims.

The women’s branches of major political parties are active during elections, but women face practical restrictions on voting, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan, where militant groups and societal constraints are stronger. Women rarely hold party or government leadership posts, and millions of women are missing from the voter rolls, partly because many lack identity documents. Electoral laws state that at least 10 percent of votes must be cast by women for a result to be valid.

The interests of LGBT+ people are generally not represented by elected officials.

The national-level single-member constituency system ensures that the major ethno-linguistic groups from each province receive parliamentary representation. Although Sindhi, Pashtun, and Baloch figures all play visible roles in national political life—alongside the largest ethno-linguistic group, Punjabis—the military works to marginalize figures from minority groups that it suspects of harboring antistate sentiments.

Formally, the prime minister and cabinet make policy in consultation with the parliament. However, there has been a long-running struggle between these civilian structures and the military establishment for control of national security policy. Most civilian politicians have concluded that, to remain in office, they must retain the confidence of the military leadership.

During the final months of his premiership and subsequently as opposition leader, Imran Khan was publicly critical of the military. This breakdown in relations was seen as the key factor in his ouster, even if the formal procedure of his removal was a parliamentary and constitutional one. Since, the has army played a more active role in political management, including suppressing the opposition, now dominated by PTI.

With the civilian administration increasingly dependent on the military for survival, the army has expanded the areas of policymaking which it influences beyond national security and foreign policy to include economics, immigration, and media control.

Despite numerous formal safeguards, official corruption is endemic in practice. The use of accountability mechanisms is often selective and politically driven. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the government’s anticorruption body, focuses on cases against politicians and senior officials, which tend to be protracted. The military and judiciary have their own disciplinary systems for corruption.

The government is subject to legal transparency requirements surrounding public finances, procurement processes, and general operations. However, the military is deeply opaque in its affairs. Military intelligence agencies act without oversight and often without public knowledge, including when they abduct, detain, interrogate, and torture individuals. Vaguely worded regulations empower military officials to monitor and censor media content that is deemed harmful to national security.

Access-to-information laws have long been applied in Pakistan, though implementation is inconsistent in practice. Government departments often ignore requests, though determined citizens can complain to provincial information commissions about noncompliance.

The parliament regularly debates and scrutinizes the budget, accompanied by commentary from the media. Lawmakers are expected to make themselves accessible to constituents. Parliamentarians and select public officials must submit asset declarations that civil society organizations often share online. Civic groups and journalists weigh in on policy debates, provided they do not touch on national security matters.

Pakistan has historically hosted a relatively vibrant media sector, with many television news channels and print publications presenting a range of news and opinions. However, both the civilian authorities and the military have curtailed media freedom in recent years.

Journalists who are deemed to have antagonized the military through their reporting have been subject to enforced disappearance and other abuses. Prominent journalist Matiullah Jan, along with a colleague, was detained in Islamabad by plainclothes operatives during November 2024 PTI protests. The journalists were released after three days after being booked on terrorism and narcotics charges, widely understood to be a cover for security agency harassment. Enforced disappearances of journalists are most frequent in Baluchistan, such as in the case of Zubair Baloch, who was disappeared from Hub in December 2024.

Journalists report that the threats to them and their media organizations have contributed to a prevalent climate of self-censorship. In addition, media outlets have encountered interference with distribution and broadcasting, withdrawal of government advertising, and bans on television stations or specific television presenters.

The authorities continued to expand their control of online and social media. A nationwide ban on the social media platform X has been in place since February 2024. The authorities have raised the issue of banning virtual private networks (VPNs) and acknowledged that work is underway to expand further the scope of cybercrimes laws to impose further controls on social media users.

The military restricts access to militancy- and insurgency-affected areas, impeding media coverage. In Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, authorities have ordered local journalists to refrain from reporting on separatist activity, while rebel or militant groups threaten them when they allegedly side with the government.

Constitutional religious-freedom guarantees have not provided effective safeguards against discriminatory legislation, social prejudice, and sectarian violence. Shiite Muslims, Christians, and members of other religious minority groups can face blasphemy accusations that arise from trivial disputes and escalate to criminal prosecution and mob violence. Blasphemy accusations have increasingly been accompanied by mob violence, such as in the case of a 70-year-old Christian man who was killed by a mob in Sargodha in May 2024 and a 40-year-old lynched in Swat the following month. In September 2024, police shot and killed Shahnawaz Kambhar, a medical doctor who had gone into hiding after being accused of making blasphemous social media posts, in Omarkot.

Hindus have complained of vulnerability to kidnapping and forced conversions.

Ahmadis are legally prohibited from calling themselves Muslims and face discrimination. Arbitrary detentions and violent attacks against the Ahmadi community continued in 2024, as did desecration of Ahmadi places of worship and graveyards.

Pakistani authorities have long used the education system to portray Hindus and other non-Muslims negatively and to rationalize enmity between Pakistan and India, among other ideological aims.

In recent years, scholars have been somewhat more able to discuss sensitive issues involving the military. However, there is no academic freedom on matters pertaining to religion, as academics remain vulnerable to blasphemy accusations.

Pakistanis are free in practice to discuss many topics, but the 2016 Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act gives the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) unchecked powers to censor material online. Its broad and poorly defined mandate includes prevention of both morally objectionable content and any maligning of the “state, judiciary, or armed forces.”

Direct or implied criticism of the military and its perspectives on national security can draw criminal or extralegal punishment. The threat of being accused of blasphemy and facing draconian legal action, murder, or mob attacks also deters unfettered speech.

The constitution guarantees freedom of assembly, and many protests are allowed to proceed peacefully. However, the government can harness legal provisions to arbitrarily ban any gathering that is designated as a threat to public order. There is a well-established pattern of law enforcement action against assemblies that the military considers prejudicial to its notion of national security, or which the civilian government considers a challenge to its authority.

In response to an attempted PTI march on Islamabad in November 2024, authorities locked down the capital and much of Punjab, conducted mass arrests, and suspended internet and mobile signals. At least six people were killed in clashes between protesters and security forces.

Authorities also adopted extraordinary measures against assemblies in provinces they deemed sensitive. In July when the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) civil society movement tried to hold an assembly in Gwadar, authorities locked down the city and blocked roads, and four people were killed in clashes. In October, a civil society demonstration in Karachi was met with imposition of Section 144 restrictions (a colonial law prohibiting mass gatherings) and arrests of demonstrators. Also in October, when the PTM announced a grand tribal gathering in Khyber district, it was declared a terrorist organization, its leaders were targeted for preemptive arrests; police killed three activists in an attack on the site. The assembly went ahead anyway, with protection from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 because authorities interfered with several major rallies held during the year, using force and carrying out mass arrests.

Foreign and domestic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) face government-imposed restrictions. Organizations are subject to intrusive registration requirements and vetting by military intelligence officials. Authorities can demand that NGOs obtain a “no-objection certificate” before undertaking even the most innocuous activity.

The rights of workers to organize and form trade unions are recognized in law, and the constitution grants unions the rights to collective bargaining and to strike. However, these protections are not strongly enforced. Roughly 70 percent of the workforce is employed in the informal sector, where unionization and legal protections are minimal. Onerous procedures must be followed for a strike to be legal. Strikes and labor protests are organized regularly, though they often lead to clashes with police and dismissals by employers.

Although formally independent, the judiciary has long been involved in power struggles between the military, the civilian government, and opposition politicians. It has at times acted in tandem with other elements of the establishment, abetting the military in curtailing the powers of targeted civilian politicians. It has also acted as a center of political power in its own right.

During the ongoing campaign by the establishment to marginalize the PTI and its leader Imran Khan, the judiciary delivered a series of judgements that helped disrupt PTI’s participation in the general elections and keep Imran Khan in detention. However, the Supreme Court also delivered some judgements considered favorable to Imran Khan and the PTI, most notably when it ruled that PTI should receive a proportional share of reserved seats in the National and Provincial Assemblies. Additionally, in March 2024, six Islamabad High Court judges complained to the Supreme Judicial Council that state intelligence agencies had tried to influence sensitive cases by intimidating judges, holding relatives hostage, and bugging their residences.

In October 2024, the government secured the National Assembly’s approval of the 26th Constitutional Amendment. The amendment removed the Supreme Court’s suo moto powers, limited the chief justice’s term, gave the prime minister a role in chief justice appointment, gave the executive a role in selecting a new constitutional bench, and gave a new judicial panel a role in appraising judges and their performance. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan expressed concern that elements of the amendment would erode judicial independence. The International Commission of Jurists expressed similar concerns.

The broader court system is marred by endemic problems including corruption, intimidation, insecurity, a large backlog of cases, and low conviction rates for serious crimes.

Police have long been accused of biased or arbitrary handling of initial criminal complaints. Police and prosecutors have been criticized for a chronic failure to prosecute terrorism cases and for their reliance on torture to obtain confessions.

The trial of civilians in military courts under the Army Act remains highly controversial. All 85 civilian PTI supporters tried by military courts for their role in May 2023 riots have been found guilty and sentenced to up to 10 years imprisonment. Meanwhile, in November 2024, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan marked the fifth anniversary of the jailing of human rights activist Idris Khattak, who was convicted of fabricated charges by a secret military court. In addition to the lack of due process safeguards in military trial proceedings, those convicted by military courts have limited rights of appeal.

There has been progress in women’s access to justice and generalized protection of rights for litigants in the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATAs). However, informal jirgas remain a form of local dispute resolution alongside the formal justice system.

Widespread insecurity prevailed in two provinces in 2024—Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan—primarily as a result of three overlapping terrorist campaigns, headed by Baloch separatist groups, the TTP or Pakistani Taliban, and the regional branch of the Islamic State militant group, ISKP.

Operating largely from bases in Afghanistan, the TTP further escalated its insurgency during the year, particularly targeting security forces in Waziristan, Bajaur, and other border areas. TTP operated in larger formations and attacked multiple police stations and army posts. The insurgency in Baluchistan intensified during the year, with a series of mass casualty attacks, including from suicide bombers. ISKP sustained a campaign of assassinations, targeting office bearers of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) political party, police, and alleged spies. An episode in November 2024 of Shia-Sunni sectarian violence in Kurram District led to killings, mass displacement, and a blockade of the main road. There were also multiple incidents of Afghan and Pakistani forces deployed along the border firing on each other’s territory. And in January 2024, Iran conducted aerial bombardment of targets in Baluchistan that it claimed were associated with militant group Jaish al-Adil.

Overall, there was a 50 percent annual increase in the number of fatal terrorist attacks in 2024, with 2,236 people—including civilians, terrorists, and security personnel—killed in 790 terrorist incidents, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal.

Enforced disappearances and summary executions carried out by state actors have long been a feature of counterterrorist and counterinsurgency operations, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan. Protests at these disappearances drove a new wave of civil society activism in Baluchistan during 2024.

Women face discrimination in employment despite legal protections and are placed at a disadvantage under personal status laws. Many perpetrators of gender-based violence and sexual harassment or discrimination enjoy impunity, and police are often reluctant to pursue complaints of crimes against women.

Members of ethnic and religious minorities as well as LGBT+ people also experience legal or de facto discrimination and violence. The penal code prescribes prison terms for consensual sex “against the order of nature,” deterring LGBT+ people from acknowledging their identity or reporting abuses. Transgender and intersex people have been authorized to register for official documents under a “third gender” classification recognized by the Supreme Court since 2009, and a 2018 law further protected transgender people’s right to legal recognition of their gender identity, among other rights. However, they continue to face targeted violence and discrimination in housing and employment, and in May 2023 the Federal Shariat Court struck down core sections of the 2018 law. An appeal to the Supreme Court was pending at year’s end.

In October 2023, the caretaker government called for all illegal migrants to leave the country by November 1, but in practice focused on Afghans resident in Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands of people have since been deported in operations featuring harassment, seizure of property, demolition of settlements, temporary detention, and forced expulsion. Those expelled included many Afghans who were long-term residents of or were born in Pakistan, and some were forced out or induced to leave despite having valid documentation.

Authorities routinely hinder internal movement in some parts of the country for security reasons. Foreign travel is restricted in part through the Exit Control List, which blocks named individuals from using official exit points. Though the list is intended to prevent those posing a security threat and those facing court proceedings from fleeing, authorities have frequently used it to control dissent.

In October 2024, prominent Baloch civil society leader Mahrang Baloch was prevented from boarding a flight to the United States for an event to celebrate her inclusion on the Time list of 100 rising leaders. It was later reported that Mahrang’s name was included on a list Pakistani authorities used to restrict terrorism and organized crime suspects; she denied such associations. Another Baloch activist, Sammi Deen Baloch, was prevented from travelling to Geneva in similar circumstances the previous month.

The constitution, legal system, and social and religious values ostensibly guarantee private property and free enterprise. In reality, organized crime, corruption, a weak regulatory environment, and subversion of the legal system often render property rights precarious. Powerful organized groups continue to engage in land grabbing. During the mass expulsion of Afghan refugees, ongoing since late 2023, property owners of Afghan origin have reported being forced to sell assets at low prices or having them confiscated.

Inheritance laws discriminate against women, and women are often denied their legal share of inherited property through social or familial pressure.

In some parts of urban Pakistan, men and women enjoy considerable personal social freedoms and have recourse to the law in case of infringements. However, social practices in much of the country restrict personal behavior, especially choice of marriage partner. Despite attempts to abolish “honor killings” of people accused of breaking social and sexual taboos, the practice remains common, and most incidents go unreported.

Twenty-nine percent of women were married by age 18, according to a 2017–18 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey from Pakistan’s Health Ministry. Roughly one-third of Pakistani women who have been married have experienced spousal violence, according to the same study. Abortion is illegal, except when a pregnancy threatens the woman’s life.

Efforts to enforce legal bans on bonded labor and child labor continue. Gradual social change has also eroded the power of landowning families involved in such exploitation. Nevertheless, other forms of extreme labor exploitation remain common. Employers use chronic indebtedness to restrict laborers’ rights and hold actual earnings well below prescribed levels, particularly among sharecroppers and in the brick-kiln industry. Marginalized groups, such as itinerant workers, face difficulties in obtaining identity documents. Women from marginalized communities are especially vulnerable to sex trafficking within Pakistan or to other countries.