Few political movements in Pakistan’s recent history have imploded as swiftly as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. What began as a promise of reform now survives only as a story of squandered opportunity, factional infighting and strategic misjudgment. The party’s leadership remains trapped in a cycle of confrontation, unable or unwilling to learn that politics, in the end, is the art of the possible, the attainable.
The latest scenes from Lahore capture this unravelling better than any press conference. Three former party leaders slipped into Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s hospital room, hoping to enlist him in a new Release Imran Khan campaign. Qureshi reportedly refused. Meanwhile, Fawad Chaudhry released a video calling for lowering the political temperature and urging the party to take one step back so dialogue can begin. The two moments, taken together, expose the contradiction at the heart of what remains of the PTI: a movement torn between confrontation and survival.
Mr Chaudhry’s appeal is striking precisely because it comes from within the old guard. Once one of Imran Khan’s fiercest defenders, he now concedes that endless confrontation has brought the party to the edge of irrelevance. His message bluntly criticises the leadership’s refusal to engage with the state, talk to rivals, or restrain the self-styled social-media warriors who keep pouring fuel on the fire. Whatever his motives, his public admission that the all-or-nothing strategy has yielded nothing is a scathing indictment.
Yet the response from within the PTI was telling. The party’s information secretary dismissed such calls outright, declaring that “whatever Imran Khan says will happen. The rest is irrelevant.” That reflex of blind obedience has long replaced political reasoning inside a party that once claimed to be a breath of fresh air. Even as its leaders languish in jail and its organisation collapses, the movement clings to a single-man creed. The result is paralysis. No one dares to recalibrate, and everyone waits for instructions that no longer match the political reality.
The party’s downward spiral began with its refusal to accept defeat after losing power in 2022. Dissolving provincial assemblies to force early polls, rejecting every overture for dialogue, and demonising institutions turned a populist movement into a besieged faction. The May 9 riots then provided the state with justification for a sweeping crackdown that gutted PTI’s structure. Thousands were detained, many leaders defected, and the party lost even its election symbol through sheer mismanagement. What remains is a hollowed-out organisation built on grievance rather than governance.
For PTI, the choice is now existential. It can continue down the path of isolation, insisting that Imran Khan’s word is law, or it can reclaim political relevance by reopening channels with other forces. Engagement will not erase grievances, but it may restore space for politics itself. The politics of absolutism has brought Pakistan only instability. The time has come (for PTI and for the nation) to learn that dialogue is not defeat but the only road back to democracy. *