Pakistan’s establishment is chasing a fantasy. The idea that the country can move forward by erasing Imran Khan from politics is not strategy—it is denial.
Imran Khan is not a glitch in the system. He is the system’s indictment.
You can jail him, censor him, disqualify him, and exhaust him through courts. None of this solves the problem. It merely confirms it. Khan’s relevance does not come from institutions; it comes from millions of voters who no longer believe the political order represents them.
Pakistan has already tested this formula. In 1970, the state decided that accepting a popular mandate was too risky. The result was not stability, reform, or control. The result was national collapse.
This time, the illusion is that repression will be cleaner, quieter, and more manageable. It will not. Suppressing mass politics does not restore authority—it destroys legitimacy. And states without legitimacy do not govern; they merely enforce.
The belief in a “post–Imran Khan” Pakistan is rooted in the same arrogance that has failed repeatedly: that power can permanently substitute consent. History is brutal to those who believe this.
Pakistan is not facing an Imran Khan problem. It is facing a refusal to accept politics itself. And every time the state has made that choice, the bill has arrived larger, harsher, and more destructive than expected.
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