Pakistan is set to go to the polls on 25 July 2018. The upcoming general elections will be the country's second-ever democratic transition of power – the first having taken place as recently as 2013, when the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) government handed over the reins to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). These polls will also mark an unprecedented period during which two successive democratically elected governments have completed their terms.
The PML-N government completed its five-year term on 31 May this year, after which the Parliament – the 14th National Assembly – was dissolved. A caretaker government, headed by former Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk as interim prime minister, was sworn in to oversee the country's affairs until a newly elected administration takes over.
The 2018 election promises to be a close contest between the older political parties with their chequered pasts, the anti-corruption upstarts promising radical change overnight and the powerful military establishment allegedly pulling the strings behind the scenes. Pakistan's increasingly self-censored media, meanwhile, lies battered and bruised in their electoral wake.
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