This article from The Economist makes some important guesses to the questions posed by the OP:
Pakistan
Pakistan’s election
Third time lucky?
May 12th 2013, 7:10 by A.R. | LAHORE
THROUGH the night in Lahore, and early in the morning of May 12th, cars raced, honked and revved their engines, young men sprawled out of windows to wave flags and mobs of happy Punjabis shouted: “Lion!”, the party symbol of their successful leader. Their cheerfulness was understandable.
Lahore is home to Nawaz Sharif, a two-time prime minister in Pakistan now set for a record third stint.
His Pakistan Muslim League, Nawaz, or PML (N), won a clear victory after voting in national and provincial elections the day before. With counting still under way, the party is leading in as many as 128 seats, only somewhat short of the 137 that would have delivered a simple majority among the 272 seats contested in the National Assembly.
Given a plethora of small parties and independent candidates,
that is a good result. It should now be relatively straightforward for Mr Sharif to cobble together a ruling coalition without resorting to an awkward alliance with one of the other big, rival parties.
The result was broadly in line with expectations, though a late flurry of excitement for an ex-cricketer, Imran Khan, left some wondering if the national assembly would be badly fragmented.
The voting on May 11th proved to be the most successful in recent memory in Pakistan. The day was hit by severe violence, notably a bomb in Karachi that killed 11 people. By some estimates, as many as 50 died across Pakistan on polling day, after a campaign which left over 100 people dead. But after a public threat by the Pakistani Taliban to send suicide bombers to disrupt voting, matters could have been much worse.
At the mundane, organisational, level much went right. A tour of polling stations among wheat fields in rural Punjab, and then in Lahore itself, revealed no evidence of confusion, ill-preparedness or rigging. Pakistan’s famously wretched supply of electricity was solved—for a day—with every polling booth cooled by fans and well lit. The electoral roll has been cleaned up, with digital pictures of each voter included, making it easier to identify legitimate voters. Policemen and soldiers were everywhere as the sun blazed.
Despite the threat of violence,
turnout was unusually high, with generally well-ordered queues. The electoral commission suggested it could near 60%, a sharp rise on the 44% of the previous election in 2008. That suggests both enthusiasm among ordinary Pakistanis for democracy (contradicting claims of recent opinion polls that Pakistanis don’t much care for it), but also an electoral roll with far fewer “ghost voters”—the dead, or duplicated, who previously fattened its pages.
Crucially, the army appeared not to be meddling in the polls, encouraging voters to see participation as worthwhile.
Voters also, generally, proved true to type. At one Lahore polling station a mother and daughter, both in veils, described the many woes facing Pakistan. The daughter, a graduate in her twenties, saw the charismatic former cricketer, Mr Khan, as an “honest” man who would bring change. Her mother, by contrast, fervently hoped for Mr Sharif, admitting that she had swayed her daughter at the last minute to vote for him.
That generational split, with young, first-time voters intending to fall behind Mr Khan, helps to explain his relative success. Mr Khan had been predicting a sweeping victory for his PTI (Movement for Justice), thanks to the wave of excited youngsters who turned out for his rallies. He has fallen far short of that, undone in part by a lack of organisation. Yet a party that had no single assembly member in the previous election now looks set to form the main opposition, and to take control of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the north-west, which is dominated by fellow Pushtuns.
One day, if he can sustain enthusiasm for his anti-corruption message over the next five years, he may even achieve power nationally.
As expected,
the biggest loser of the night was the outgoing Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Though it managed to hold on to control of Sindh province, in the south, it is likely to end up as the third-biggest party in the national assembly with barely 40 seats.
For a party that presided over spectacular corruption, economic misrule and five years of worsening violence, such an outcome is no surprise.
Yet it was probably hampered, along with another broadly secular-minded party, the ANP, by terrorist attacks and threats which prevented rallies and kept nervous leaders cowering behind closed doors. In the case of the PPP, its young chairman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, reportedly stayed in Dubai for much of the campaign.
Mr Sharif’s win is clear, but he now faces a daunting array of immediate difficulties in office. One is the broad resentment of Punjab—the largest and wealthiest province in the country, with over half the population—that could flourish in the coming years. His PML(N) has dominated Punjab politics, and has in these polls again been returned to power at the provincial level as well. Yet the other three provinces are run by rival parties, which can make use of constitutional powers devolved to provincial authorities to defy a central government.
A second concern is the relationship between the new civilian leader and the army. Mr Sharif was deposed in a coup in 1999, having earlier been swept to power in an emphatic (though partly rigged) election swing. After 14 years away,
how he manages his relationship with the army will be crucial for Pakistan’s stability. Few expect an outright confrontation, but if Mr Sharif loses his moral authority—he was the subject of widespread and convincing allegations of corruption during previous rule—the army (or courts) may quickly feel empowered against him.
And, vitally,
will he persist with his campaign position of opposing the army for its prosecuting “America’s war” against Islamist extremists on Pakistani soil? Talk about American drone attacks in tribal areas, or Pakistani army attacks on the same areas, is extremely sensitive. A New York Times journalist, Declan Walsh, was expelled from the country on May 11th, apparently in response to a story in March suggesting Pakistan’s army had blamed America for strikes it carried out itself.
Last, and perhaps
most pressing of all, is the question of how Mr Sharif could bring economic stability to Pakistan. Economic growth is stuck at barely the same level as population growth. The previous PPP-led government tried cutting poverty, especially in rural areas, by fixing high procurement prices for farmers’ products and beginning monthly stipends for poor families. It also heavily subsidised certain forms of energy, notably natural gas. Yet it allowed the productive parts of Pakistan’s economy to atrophy: manufacturing, notably textiles, is badly hurt by the lack of reliable energy. Within a short spell Mr Sharif will have to strike a deal with the IMF for a big new loan, which will entail reforms on tax collection and more.
This will all require attention to detail, and skilful rule. For Mr Sharif, an ex-businessman who is occasionally mocked as not particularly bright, the challenge will be to get a strong team of advisers. His admirers compare him to America’s former president, Ronald Reagan, suggesting that he likes to set broad policy but lets others fuss over precise administration.
Some broad thrusts can be predicted. Mr Sharif sees the benefit of opening up to more trade, and broadly friendlier relations, with India. He is also keen on big infrastructure spending. His talk of a “bullet train” from Karachi to northern Pakistan is fanciful. But some big projects, for example in hydropower, could be a good idea.
Does all this mark a hopeful new beginning for Pakistan? After years of despair, and talk of Pakistan being on the brink of becoming a failed state,
Mr Sharif could make a start at national recovery. He might, for example, turn to his main opposition, Mr Khan, and borrow someof the fresh ideas he proposed. Most notably, politicians could offer greater leadership, by starting to pay tax themselves, to be more honest and less corrupt.
Given how low Pakistan has fallen in recent times, this could just possibly be the turn. 
