Daily Times

Rome may not have been built in a day but when made to suffer under the delusional chaos of Nero, there was no stopping the ruin. It has been nearly a month since Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf marched on Islamabad, allegedly to make a strong point, twist the government’s arm and have a bonanza on the way back. However, every passing day comes as yet another stating of the obvious: those who decided to show their strength were either blinded by their political aspirations to steal a glance at the country’s critical stand–tragically near the edge of the precipice–or wished to push it down the spiral cruelly; hoping (just like Nero) that a new Pakistan, in line with their own wishes, would emerge from the ashes. On November 24, the country’s capital was literally turned upside down, barricaded and converted into a toddler’s sandbox for the protestors who sought the release of their supposed leader and former prime minister Imran Khan.

Daily Times looks into what happened next and the seemingly neverending bonanza of disasters that took hold.

Democracy Under Siege

The streets of Islamabad, once a symbol of our nation’s potential, were choked with chaos and despair, all thanks to the violent protests initiated by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. There’s no denying how protests and public demonstrations have consistently been used as a tool for political manoeuvring. Soon after being shown the door after the first-ever exercise of no-confidence vote by the parliament, Mr Khan had turned to the public, waving blank papers and playing with the emotions, as a foolproof solution to ride back to power. November 2024’s tragedy manifested as a continuation of this strategy, wherein the leadership presented itself as courageous advocates of exercising their democratic right, in line with the constitution but operating as a calculated assault. Undermining the country’s global standing and spilling chaos, social media was once again utilised as a mouthpiece for propaganda in a premeditated attempt to undermine the sovereignty of the state and the government. That the events escalated and an unfortunate episode saw the law enforcement agencies lock horns with the protestors cannot be denied but just a cursory glance at the proceedings of the day, especially when the protestors were in the final stretch, entering the red zone, and showing an appetite to storm on major governmental buildings all the while eyeing the security apparatus is enough to understand the nefarious agenda.

Between the likes of Bushra Bibi determined not to listen to voices of reason, charged (some may even say commissioned) demonstrators proving to be uncontrollable Frankenstein’s monster and senior leaders like Barrister Gohar Ali Khan conveniently going AWOL, there was clear evidence of the foot soldiers given a green light to do whatever they wished with whosoever. This is the greatest irony of PTI. While taking great pride in their status as cheerleaders of a new Pakistan, their crusade starts and ends with themselves. In this new, reimagined version of the state, they have little regard for those who dare stand in their way. In which universe can a constitutionally guaranteed protest allow anyone to launch an assault on those standing guard because it is, quite interestingly, their constitutional responsibility to defend the homeland from threats–both external and within.

Nevertheless, if what happened on the social media applications and YouTube vlogs before and during the planned protest was distasteful, the subsequent developments were, for lack of a better word, anti-state. So perplexed has been the status quo that anyone feels free to write an emotive tweet, punctuate it with a few heart-touching details and post it on social media to become an overnight sensation. If you have somehow managed to leave the country and are sitting in the comfort of your own house, it becomes a thousand times easier to become a fuming mouthpiece to whichever vendetta fills your pockets fast. Users like Hammad Azhar, for example, kept inciting the youth to turn all guns blazing on the state, their own motherland, considering it a job well done. Where were they in this holy crusade, one may wonder? Whatsoever became of their Lollywood-inspired car rally across the Ravi Delta? Ask a few discomforting questions and you open yourself up for a disastrous character assassination. Because they may not have managed to prove themselves on the ground but the reality remains that there exists an entire generation of post-apocalyptic warriors who know neither tolerance nor decency.

Claims of Dead & Missing Demystified

PTI’s versions of whatever happened in D-chowk gave a new life to the word propaganda. The exact unfolding of the events is still unclear. To this day. Largely, because the number of those who lost their lives after policemen fired tear-gas shells to disperse protestors is not a Talley but a LONG spectrum spread across the four corners of the earth. If one leader stood up and bemoaned four casualties, the other decided to turn up a few notches and cry about 15. Another lamented 24 while a passionate press conference saw the mention of 36 deaths. It took no time for the list to gain traction to the point that as many as 300 people were said to be killed as a direct result of police and army forces firing live rounds. Meanwhile, there are roaring accounts of a large number of protestors going missing without credible information on their details.

Unmasking Alleged #IslamabadMassacre

In order to prove their point, people began sharing images and videos of the same raid, using hashtags to make sure it became a viral trend under #IslamabadMassacre. Fact checks by not just local media sources but also international think tanks have hence proved that images claiming to show Jinnah Avenue covered in blood alleged to be evidence of the high number of casualties generated by artificial intelligence. There were many clues in the image itself to knock some sense into the commentators. Since the information landscape suffers from a deluge of deepfakes, all it takes is a retweet by someone like Imran Riaz Khan and instantly, millions upon millions are ready to believe the unbelievable. The elements and contributors of this ecosystem continue to produce misleading representations of facts and distort the context of actual events. This is done in order to maintain a façade of truth, which can be used at a later discretion to form a convenient narrative.

Another sad example saw a few YouTubers making sure that an image from the Gaza strip was taken out of context and painted into the narrative as yet another evidence of all the horrors that unfolded in Islamabad. So much so that Amnesty International was forced to send out a condemnatory press release, urging the government to pay heed to the casualties. Of course, when asked by the media persons reporting from the ground, there appears little credible evidence of a live shooting or the number of casualties. The same story gets played when nearby clinics and hospitals are contacted for the list of the injured or the deceased. However, the greatest irony remains the tight-lipped response from the party higher-ups who took as much time as three weeks to come up with even a preliminary list of the alleged victims.

Let’s talk facts here

PTI’s deeply entrenched net of lobbyists and connections with the international media are known to everyone. At a time when mainstream politicians looked down upon their use of social media to propagate their own message, the youth workers kept their heads down and continued to work on raising a new structure, which would one day, become a force to reckon with. Today, when conventional media remains hostage to the whims of these voices and the urgency to remain relevant cannot be felt stronger, their message resonates at the speed of the light. After all, a lie can travel halfway around the world and back again while the truth is still lacing up its boots.

Parallels with Capitol Hill

Enough has already been said to talk about how populist leaders, whether they wish to or not, are capable of spelling unimaginable disasters due to the slightest hit to their standing. Imran Khan has gone on record several times claiming that the bedrock of democracy would not mean anything unless and until he was in the picture to steer the ship. The same goes for his supporters who have dared go to the extent of saying without Khan, there remains little need for democracy or the state. There is a clear mantra at hand: Khan is all that matters. We saw a similar manifestation of the same demagogue mindset across the Atlantic Ocen where supporters, infuriated by the unthinkable in an election outcome, ran towards Capitol Hill to dismantle democracy itself. Because there too, a cult had been developed, so all that mattered was its perfection: a group that didn’t question your motives, the next step was only to achieve the end goal – come into power and stay in power. Dr Alexandra Caldwell, an expert in global governance and political systems, recently published her findings, drawing parallels between the January 6th Capitol Hill incident and PTI’s Islamabad protest. She stated, “The November 2024 protests in Pakistan are a stark reminder of how political unrest in one nation can disrupt economic ties, diplomatic relations, and governance frameworks. Social media has become a tool for disinformation and division.”

Paralysing the System

Considering how it took a scholar little time to analyse how legislative and administrative functions in Islamabad were severely disrupted, delaying key policymaking initiatives, including those tied to International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreements and conclude that Pakistan needed to take immediate and comprehensive actions to ensure systemic and constitutional protections against malice in the name of democracy, why is it that those who spend all day and all night, talking at great length about their love for Pakistan and their unwavering commitment to democracy do not have the foresight to see the tragedy for themselves?

A similar warning was echoed by the State Bank as it highlighted the adverse impact of political unrest and uncertainty on the recent economic recovery in a report:

“The economy continues to grapple with structural bottlenecks in spite of some improvements in the macroeconomic indicators,” it said.

“Political uncertainty exacerbates the situation through inconsistency in economic policies, weak governance and public administration. This underscores the need for policy reforms to ensure sustainable development over the medium- to long-term,” the central bank added.

On one hand, PTI machinery has spent the better part of the last decade cheering on its emphasis on securing finances, first in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and then as the face of the federal administration. The less said about pulling the covers off the KPK miracle, especially in recent times as there’s little attention available for the delivery of services and the ruling leaders in no mood to worry about the skyrocketing public debt, the better it would be for the morale of PTI’s supporters. Nevertheless, it would be akin to living in a fantasyland to close one’s eyes to a string of warnings given by global credit agencies like Moody’s and Fitch of how Pakistan is in no shape to let politics trump the economy’s revival and impair the country’s ability to implement tough structural reforms.

The PML(N)-led government, whether in the right or in the wrong, tried to convince the protestors to call off the demonstration in the light of a scheduled trip by a high-level delegation from Belarus. Nevertheless, raging protests meant diplomatic engagements were derailed, damaging Pakistan’s international reputation. Delegations from China scaled back visits, raising concerns about Pakistan’s reliability as a partner. A significant adverse consequence of the disruptive politics of the PTI is the reputational damage to Pakistan as a safe haven for investment and business.

Today, when the country is in urgent need of winning the confidence of the international community and every expert worth his salt cautions that the hard-earned financial gains can be eroded in a single cycle of unrest, can the PTI leaders really explain the high cost of their emphasis on showing street numbers?

Economic Fallout

The turmoil was nothing but a dangerously costly gamble for Pakistan’s economy. Long after the protests gripped the nation, we are still finding it hard to fully ascertain the catastrophic fallout. With daily economic losses soaring to an eye-watering Rs. 190 billion, we witness a staggering cumulative damage that eclipses Rs. 3 trillion! Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has since then, on numerous occasions, linked the country’s fragile progress to the willingness of political forces to undermine the government’s efforts on the economic front to create a narrative of the state’s failure.

Critical sectors such as retail, hospitality, and logistics continued to bleed revenue, suffering declines exceeding 50 per cent in the hardest-hit regions. The heart of trade in Islamabad and Rawalpindi was mercilessly brought to its knees, resulting in shortages of essential goods and temporary inflation that punished ordinary citizens already facing challenging times. Their patience has been tested beyond limits as residents, home to the capital, are no longer in the mood to live in container and marches city. Schools and shops closed, internet service cut, and roads teemed with thousands of police officers scrutinizing passers-by, they wish for the political temperatures to cool off so that they can get on with life as they once knew: normal.

Protests are no longer disruptions. The way they metamorphosed as the fight for true independence has turned into an economic sabotage, that too, at its ugliest.

Businesses that once thrived still recount days of how they were forced to languish in a state of paralysis, and the echoes of empty shops are a testament to the chaos instigated by PTI’s reckless manoeuvres. These rounds of breakdowns are happening at a time when Pakistan was finally clawing its way back to stability. After wrestling with unprecedented levels of inflation, we have only now begun to see a glimmer of hope: inflation is at its six-year low and foreign direct investment rising. Yet, like a thief in the night, some political actors have launched a deliberate offensive to derail our hard-fought progress.

Let’s talk about priorities. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, in a shocking misuse of taxpayer money, diverted provincial resources to sustain the protests, financing everything from transportation to payments for activists. The use of cranes, fire tenders, and other government machinery in this chaotic political theatrics was not only a blatant waste but an outright betrayal of the people’s trust. Meanwhile, those who rely on the provincial government for essential services were left in the lurch, begging for attention while their leaders played their dangerous game.

It’s infuriating to watch as PTI’s reckless actions undermine a government that was finally showing signs of recovery. This isn’t just about politics; it’s about the future of the economy. Each reckless demonstration, each inflammatory speech, is a calculated step toward state failure. This turmoil not only tarnishes our democratic credentials but inflicts devastating damage on our fragile economy.

The federal capital’s streets echo with the chaos of tens of thousands of security personnel clashing with emotional protesters. With the internet largely suspended, the sight is a distressing reminder of the profound effects that political instability has on investor confidence. The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) endured its worst-ever single-day drop, plummeting by 3,505.62 points as panicked investors scrambled to offload shares, their fears palpable in the face of escalating tensions. Although the PSX gained ground the next day, the volatility highlights the fragility of investor confidence and the broader economic risks arising from ongoing political uncertainty.

And if that wasn’t enough, the country’s sovereign dollar bonds spiralled downwards amid a backdrop of violent clashes. It’s a grim reflection of the reality we face-a volatile market responding to the everyday turmoil of political strife.

Let us be clear: such actions threaten to unravel the economic progress we’ve worked so hard to achieve. The ongoing political uncertainty portends broader economic risks, undermining the very foundation of our future.