Three years after Imran Khan was bundled into Adiala jail, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf insists it is a monolith. "Anyone can have their own opinion, but when it comes to Imran Khan, all are united," PTI's information secretary Waqas Akram told Dawn this week. The line is as polished as the party's social-media feed, but behind it lies a widening fault line.
Anonymous insiders now admit that what began as routine bureaucratic disagreement has curdled into something more dangerous: a party that cannot decide, coordinate, or even speak in one voice. Multiple centres of influence, Khan's family, the jailed central leadership, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cabinet, the parliamentary party, and a diaspora social-media army, are jostling for space while the formal decision-making bodies, like the political committee, have quietly lapsed. "Whenever we want to move, the file goes to Adiala," said one leader. "Whenever we want to delay, it stays in the committee."
The protest paradox
PTI's electoral weight has never been greater, it still commands the largest opposition bloc in both houses, yet its parliamentary footprint is shrinking to a shadow. A PTI senator, granted anonymity, put it bluntly: "We draw salaries but do not sit in committees. Legislative work happens there. If we're not in the room, we cannot shape the law." The admission is damning for a party that once styled itself as a government-in-waiting. Instead of drafting amendments or building consensus, the parliamentary caucus is reduced to symbolic walkouts and carefully curated tweets.
The same paralysis afflicts street politics. After the November 2024 Islamabad crackdown, when Khan's supporters breached the Red Zone and briefly forced open Adiala's gates at night, the party has not mounted a single sustained march. Leaders now concede that the social-media blitz from London and Toronto is not translating into boots on the ground. "We tried the family channel, we tried the diaspora megaphone, we even floated names like Mahmood Khan Achakzai," said another parliamentarian. "None of it moves the needle."
When Zia's ghost walks the corridors
These fissures echo a familiar pattern in Pakistani politics: the outsized figure who towers over the party, the jostling lieutenants, the collapsing institutions. The closest parallel is Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party in the late 1970s, when the founder's imprisonment and subsequent hanging left the party riven by factions that never truly healed. Bhutto's charisma had masked the absence of a succession plan; Khan's absence is doing the same for PTI. The difference today is speed: social media accelerates suspicion and splits loyalties in weeks rather than years.
The structural problem is the same, too much power concentrated in one person, too little institutional glue. Bhutto's party survived because it had grassroots cadres and a cause (socialism). PTI's cadres are still loyal, but the cause, ousting the establishment, has lost its sharp edge now that Khan is in prison and the 2024 election results are a fait accompli. Without a clear next step, the organisation risks calcifying into a fan club rather than a political movement.
What it means for Pakistan, and the neighbourhood
For Pakistan, the stakes are domestic but the spill-over is regional. A fragmented PTI cannot be an effective check on the current coalition. That vacuum emboldens the ruling party to push unpopular reforms, like the new taxation measures quietly slipped into the budget, knowing the opposition cannot mount a coherent counter-narrative. At the same time, any perception that PTI is drifting toward street chaos without a parliamentary anchor gives the military establishment an excuse to tighten its grip on the narrative, citing "stability" as the overriding priority.
In New Delhi, the disarray inside PTI is read as a strategic gift. India's foreign office has long argued that Khan's populist rhetoric, especially on Kashmir, was a destabilising wildcard. A weakened PTI removes one source of unpredictability from the bilateral equation, even if it also removes a potential interlocutor should talks ever resume. Across the Durand Line, Kabul's Taliban watch with quiet satisfaction: a distracted Islamabad is less likely to challenge their cross-border patronage networks.
The economic angle is equally stark. Pakistan's foreign reserves remain perilously low, and the IMF programme hinges on parliamentary approval of revenue measures. If PTI's 80-odd MPs refuse to play ball, not out of principle, but because they cannot agree on a line, Islamabad risks another programme breakdown, which would trigger capital flight and a currency crisis. Traders in Lahore bazaars are already whispering about the next round of rupee devaluation; they blame the government's drift, but PTI's inability to organise a coherent opposition is part of the problem.
The way forward, if there is one
Two scenarios look plausible in the next six months. The first is a managed succession: Shah Mahmood Qureshi, currently imprisoned, is released or granted bail and quietly anointed as the party's public face. Qureshi brings gravitas, diplomatic experience, and, crucially, no family baggage. The catch is that his release would require a deal with the establishment, something Khan has always resisted. The second scenario is a messy divorce: younger leaders like Usama Mela or Ali Asghar Khan break away to form a splinter faction, arguing that the old guard has become an electoral liability. That split would haemorrhage votes but could energise the street once again.
Either path demands one thing PTI has not shown recently: discipline. The party's social-media ecosystem remains a fire hose of conflicting narratives, some attacking the government, others praising Khan's jailhouse poetry, a few even floating conspiracy theories about "internal traitors." The result is a brand that feels simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, loved by its base but incomprehensible to swing voters.
There is no historical law that says PTI must survive as a unified force. The Jamaat-i-Islami has endured splits and still thrives; the MQM has splintered into warring factions and barely registers in Karachi politics. What is certain is that the longer the vacuum lasts, the harder it becomes for Khan's party to reclaim the centre ground. And in Pakistan, when the centre ground falls vacant, the periphery always rushes in.
