Few parties in Pakistan’s political history have soared as high (or fallen as abruptly) as the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf. Today, it stands at a fork in the road, its future hanging in the balance between confrontation and the hard arithmetic of political survival.
Once a juggernaut fuelled by restless crowds and an unbroken media narrative, PTI has been driven into an unfamiliar corner. The incarceration of its key leadership has left the party adrift, cut off from decisive command, and vulnerable to factional squabbles simmering just beneath the surface. Social media, the same force that once amplified its message, is now ablaze with whispers of betrayal and loyalty tests. The party’s own leaders admit that trust has eroded to the point where “everyone is a suspect; no one can be trusted.”
Nowhere is this drift clearer than in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Despite standing orders to consult the party’s imprisoned figurehead, the provincial government passed its budget without waiting for his nod. It’s a telling sign: governance cannot wait indefinitely, and even the most loyal lieutenants are beginning to act on their own calculus. Just recently, a heated exchange between President Junaid Akbar Khan and Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur’s spokesperson saw the former openly attack the provincial administration in KP. With murmurs of a constitutional ouster growing louder, PTI’s top leadership has been forced into a public display of unity, masking deep fractures beneath the surface. The deeper truth emerging is that PTI’s structure was never built to withstand this kind of shock. A party that drew strength from a singular leader’s charisma now finds itself struggling to function without his daily directives. The vacuum left by his absence has exposed just how thin the party’s institutional foundations truly are.
Yet amid the confusion, a flicker of pragmatism has appeared. Some leaders have proposed “meaningful dialogue” with the government, signalling a willingness to negotiate rather than remain barricaded in perpetual resistance. Their idea–to talk first with political actors, then with other power centres–marks a clear departure from the party’s earlier refusal to engage with those it deemed mere figureheads.
But this overture risks splitting the party down the middle. Hardliners insist that any compromise is a defeat, while others quietly concede that isolation is unsustainable. Even suggesting dialogue has become politically dangerous, both within PTI’s ranks and in the broader theatre of Pakistani politics, where such moves are often weaponised as evidence of capitulation.
PTI now faces its harshest reckoning yet: remain locked in confrontation and risk fading into political irrelevance, or pivot toward negotiation and risk accusations of surrender. The coming weeks will reveal whether it can evolve from a movement built around one man’s magnetism into a political party capable of surviving its harshest winter yet. *