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The focus of this article is to explain the outcome of Pakistan's 2018 Election, which is only the second successful transfer of power from one civilian government to another after completing a full five-year term. The PTI (Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf) emerged victorious with a greater majority than was predicted, soundly defeating the incumbent ruling party PML-N (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz). We question why an incumbent governing party that had been delivering on its campaign promises and was generally perceived to be performing well lost the election to PTI, a newer and more inexperienced party. We make a nested argument in this paper: had an uneven playing field not been created in the pre-poll phase due to reported interference by the military and the media in the formation of public opinion, so-called electables would not have defected to the PTI in large numbers. It is in the context of this broader political environment that PTI's electoral strategy to accept these defecting politicians and select them as candidates paid-off, earning the party an electoral majority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Balochistan is in the grip of two distinct and mutually exclusive ethnonational and religious movements that straddle important swathes of its rugged and mountainous territory. From Quetta up in the north to the coast of Makran in the south, Balochistan is being shaped by the twin forces of local nationalism and jihadist organizations. Domestically, the issue of Balochistan has remained an Achilles heel for Pakistan's policy makers culminating in five separate insurgencies in the post-colonial era. All such insurgencies had to do with the imperative of a centralizing elite and the recalcitrance of a local elite resisting assimilationist pressures. On the religious front, since 2009 Balochistan has come under increased scrutiny, with the Americans alleging that Quetta and its environs are a safe haven for the Taliban leadership, including Mullah Omar. Coincidentally, Quetta has also seen rising sectarian conflict, and the Shia-Sunni divide in the city continues to assume importance in the War on Terror. In light of the rising tide of Baloch nationalism and jihadist activism, including sectarian killings, the paper puts forth a critically oriented analysis of the twin dynamics of religious activism and ethnic conflict in Balochistan and its attendant ramifications for domestic, regional, and global security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]