The ongoing political crisis and confrontation between the federal government and the opposition, led by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), doesn’t seem to be ending soon. After postponing its long march to Islamabad on the eve of 27 September, the PTI finally set out on the march on 4 October after intense sessions of talks failed to reach a positive result.
Addressing the protesters at Karak, the Chief Minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP)—the only province that has a PTI government— Sohail Afridi presented a strong image of the party chairman Imran Khan, claiming that the latter was not breaking down despite being punished along with his family. Targeting the government/military establishment, Afridi said that “decision-makers in closed rooms have always sold our blood, but now decisions will be made in the fields in line with the people’s aspirations.”
The line taken by Afridi is the same that was adopted by the PTI while announcing the march. The party had stated: “Imran Khan’s constitutional and legal rights have been usurped; we have no path left except the long march.” The statement emphasised that it was the moment to restore the constitutional rights of the people.
Although both sides, the federal government and the PTI, have consistently insisted on talks to iron out differences and reach a mutually acceptable solution to the contested issues, they blame each other for the failure of earlier talks.
Amid fresh proposals for talks, both sides have hardened their stances. Afridi declared the march would be momentous, vowing that the “struggle against fascism and lawlessness will continue until the rule of law is established” and all political prisoners, including Chairman Imran Khan, are released. Meanwhile, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi warned against the march, stating, “If even one person dies, Sohail Afridi will be responsible.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in a double-edged message, said that his government has been trying to stabilise the economy and the country; if anyone tries to disrupt the stabilisation process, “is it not equivalent to being an enemy of the country?” Like the Interior Minister Naqvi, Sharif also blamed the PTI for the deadlock, saying that PTI “only had one purpose: to ensure that the talks do not succeed.”
Consequently, both sides are publicly signalling a desire for talks while simultaneously broadcasting rhetoric that suggests a breakthrough is unlikely. Both factions are therefore preparing for a stalemate, barring a sudden and unexpected shift in the political landscape.
That shift did come on 11 October, though not in the direction of a compromise. On the recommendation of the federal cabinet, President Asif Ali Zardari imposed an emergency and governor’s rule in KP under Articles 232 and 234 of the Constitution, citing the provincial government’s “deliberate disengagement from the fight against terrorism.” Governor Faisal Karim Kundi, a PPP leader, has taken charge with an 11-member technocratic advisory council, and army troops have been authorised in aid of civil power. Afridi, along with the KP Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati and MNA Junaid Akbar, was taken into “preventative custody”, confining the march to KP. The PTI has called the move “more of a coup disguised as emergency.”
The PTI has reached out to a wider audience, particularly the youth. Prime Minister Sharif also said in his message that the nation knows who is harming the stabilisation process. In reality, however, neither side seems to care about the common people of the country, who have been reeling from continuous political instability, growing insecurity, and rising inflation.
Meanwhile, and more importantly, this fragmented society—which is divided into extreme positions—allows the military to manoeuvre forces to capture and exercise power. The military has mastered the art of utilising such perennial crises in Pakistan. This is not the first time it has done so successfully. In fact, Imran Khan was used against the Nawaz Sharif-led government in 2016 to oust Nawaz on some flimsy charges. The irony is that no party has learned any lesson from the past. For example, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) has fallen victim to this politics not once, but a couple of times. Still, it aligned with the military to weaken and punish Imran Khan.
With the emergency in place, a compromise looks more distant than ever, though it would still be premature to state whether the PTI long march will lead to violence. However, the ongoing crisis reveals the larger structural problem of the polity in Pakistan. As has been the case throughout the country’s short history, the internal power struggle between military and civilian authorities is yet to be resolved. The infighting in the political class is utilised by the military to secure its superiority and influence the country’s governance system.
Since Pakistan’s inception, the military has viewed itself as the ultimate guardian and arbiter of the state. This mindset has translated into extensive control over key areas, including foreign policy and domestic governance. In the foreign policy domain, the military has retained tight control over strategic sectors—particularly relations with neighbouring countries, defence policy, and nuclear oversight.
Civilian governments that attempted to independently direct these policies have frequently faced intense friction or removal; both Nawaz Sharif’s fallout in 2016 and Imran Khan’s ouster in 2022 resulted from their assertion in these areas. In domestic politics, whether governing through direct military dictatorships for nearly half of the country’s history or exercising behind-the-scenes influence during nominal civilian rule, the institution has shaped the judiciary, media regulation, economic priorities, and the political landscape.
In opposition to this centralised control, Pakistani society has repeatedly generated grassroots, mass-level movements aimed at decentralising power and holding unelected institutions accountable. From the massive labour and student uprisings of the late 1960s that toppled Ayub Khan to subsequent nationwide movements against military dictatorships, such as those of Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf, citizens have routinely taken to the streets to demand constitutional supremacy.
Recent political shifts—particularly the mobilisation around populist movements like Imran Khan’s PTI and historical regional or ethnic rights movements—demonstrate a persistent public refusal to accept centralised tutelage. These movements have increasingly politicised the ordinary citizenry, making the institutional role of Rawalpindi a central and open topic of public debate. This dynamic creates a continuous cycle in which civilian political aspirations persistently clash with the military establishment, shaping the turbulent trajectory of Pakistan’s democracy.
In the country’s current political system, the military—along with its subservient allies in the polity and the judiciary—uses every possible means to maintain control or heavily influence the policies of “elected” governments. This protest culture is symptomatic of a political structure where the military, seeking to dominate domestic and foreign policy, co-opts specific leaders to undermine the legitimacy of genuinely popular ones.
If a “selected” leader later attempts to assert independent authority, they are quickly sent packing. At the same time, a segment of society has resisted the military’s political interference and its protégés from the very beginning, which explains why protests have become emblematic of Pakistan. Almost every top leader of Pakistan is a product and victim of the same political culture of the country: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, Benazir Bhutto, and now Imran Khan.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is also walking a thin line. If the issue of creating new provinces picks up and he decides to oppose it, his ouster is certain. And if he capitulates to the demand of the military, which seems likely, his government will be further weakened, delegitimised, and the military strengthened. In either case, it is the military that benefits; it has always been so, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.
Please follow Blitz on Google News Channel
The post PTI protest, civil-military imbalance, and Pakistan’s protest culture appeared first on BLiTZ.