The highway is the most politically charged part of a politically troubled country. It winds 180 miles from Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, through the fertile plains of Punjab province to Lahore, the cultural and political heart of the nation.
For centuries, it was known only as a part of the Grand Trunk Road, Asia’s longest and oldest road, connecting traders in Central Asia with the Indian subcontinent. But in Pakistan, this stretch of smog-filled highway has become the scene of large rallies and protests led by almost every prominent civic leader the country has had.
As Pakistan heads into national elections on Thursday, the road is buzzing. Politics dominates the chatter between her vendors and rickshaw drivers, their conversations oozing a culture of conspiracy, political personality cults and the problems of entrenched military control.
Almost every day, hundreds fill the road – its overpasses are plastered with green, red and white political posters – to rally for them. Many others, their preferred party effectively dissolved amid a military crackdown, are silently cursing the authorities ahead of an election widely seen as one of the least credible in the country’s history.
Mile 38: The Financial Crash
The kiosk just off the main highway in Gujar Khan is little more than a metal chair with newspapers carefully unfolded in a circle. Men gathered around the pavilion, chatting as they drank their morning tea and electric rickshaws whizzed by. Every day, newspapers arrive with a new political ad splashed across their front page, said vendor Abdul Rahim, 60. But he wasn’t swayed by any of their catchy slogans or clever headbanging.
Like many people across Pakistan, he is fed up with the country’s political system. After former Prime Minister Imran Khan fell out with the country’s powerful military and was ousted from Parliament in 2022, infighting appeared to consume the country’s political and military leaders. All the while, people like Mr. Rahim were reeling from the worst economic crisis in Pakistan’s recent history, which sent inflation soaring to nearly 40 percent last year, a record high.
“For five years, I’ve been worrying about how to put food on the table — that’s all I’ve been thinking about,” Mr Rahim said.
Three governments, led by three different parties, have been in power since inflation began to soar in 2019. None has been able to get the economy back on track, explained Mr. Rahim and some men gathered around the booth.
“The rulers are getting richer, their children are getting richer and we are getting poorer every day,” said Abid Hussein, 57, a nearby fruit seller. “This is the worst period of my life in Pakistan.”
Mile 74: The Crackdown
The fliers are hidden at major intersections in the Jhelum, wedged between the fruits and sunglasses of vendors’ carts, and surreptitiously handed out to passers-by. They have a picture of Mr Khan in the top left corner along with his party’s new slogan: “We will take revenge with the vote”.
Most of the campaigning for Mr. Khan’s political party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, took place in those shadows after the military launched a months-long campaign of intimidation.
“They are working to crush the party. But they can’t because the party is in people’s hearts,” Jhelum provincial assembly candidate Yasir Mehmood Qureshi said as he stood in a large, shaded courtyard surrounded by about a dozen supporters.
The military crackdown was designed to oust the populist Mr Khan, but most analysts say it has instead boosted his support. While his popularity had plummeted as the economy tanked in the final months of his tenure, he now has a cult following. Supporters see him – and by extension themselves – as wronged by the military leaders they believe orchestrated his overthrow.
“We are disappointed,” said a PTI supporter, Momin Khan, 25. “Everybody’s angry.”
Mile 118: The Young Vote
The young men sat on a dead patch of grass at the edge of a field in Wazirabad, half watching a cricket match. Bored with the game, Umer Malik, 28, took out his phone and started scrolling through TikTok. Within seconds, a video was released showing a PTI rally with the words “Vote Only Khan,” another mocking the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or PMLN, the party seen as favored by the military in these elections, and a slow-motion of Mr. Khan walking through a crowd.
“One in three videos is about political stuff,” muttered Mr. Malik.
Mr. Malik and his cronies had been captivated by the flood of political content produced by the PTI in recent years. The videos explained in layman’s terms how Pakistan’s military had kept an iron grip on power. They taught the history of the many military coups. They slammed the generals for ousting Mr. Khan.
This content, outside the reach of state censorship, had sparked a political awakening for their generation, which makes up about half of the country’s electorate. While young people in Punjab were once instructed to vote by elders who were promised projects like new roads by party leaders, they now vote for whoever they prefer.
“The old days are over,” said Abid Mehar, 34, whose parents are staunch PMLN voters, while supporting the PTI “We will vote with our conscience.”
Mile 137: The Chosen Party
It was almost midnight when the PMLN leaders turned up at the rally in Gujranwala. Hundreds of party supporters crammed into rows upon rows of seats, cheering and clapping as fireworks lit up the sky. Political chants blaring from the loudspeakers: “Nawaz Sharif, he will build Punjab!” “Nawaz Sharif, he will save the country!”
Mr Sharif’s almost certain return to power has offered a redemption. He has been prime minister three times – never completing a single term. Twice he was expelled after falling out with the army. Then, in 2017, he was ousted by corruption allegations.
But for a military bent on launching the PTI, Mr Sharif was seen as perhaps the only politician who could counter Mr Khan’s popular appeal. After spending four years in exile, Mr Sharif was allowed to return to the country in October to drum up support for the PMLN.
“When he came back, he revived the party,” said Ijaz Khan Ballu, a PMLN activist in Gujranwala. “All those votes for PMLN are really votes for Nawaz Sharif.”
