PAKISTAN has become remarkably good at surviving political crises and remarkably bad at ending them. Governments change, leaders are removed, arrested or returned to power, elections are held, courts intervene and negotiations are announced. Yet the argument rarely ends. It simply changes its form and waits for the next confrontation. Yesterday’s political battles become tomorrow’s grievances, while every new government inherits not only the country’s problems but also its unfinished wars. The result is a state perpetually occupied with settling the past, leaving too little time to build the future.
The latest episode is a familiar one. The Supreme Court ordered the transfer of Imran Khan from prison for medical treatment. The government subsequently challenged aspects of the order, Khan was briefly taken for medical examination and returned to prison, and his party moved towards contempt proceedings while reaffirming plans for a September 27 protest. At almost the same time, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif again invited the opposition to dialogue.
The details will change. The pattern will not. For decades, Pakistan’s political conversation has repeatedly returned to one unresolved question after another. Who removed whom? Who won the election? Who was denied a level playing field? Who should be released? Which institution acted within its authority? Which court order should be implemented? Which political party represents the real mandate? These are legitimate questions. A democracy cannot ask citizens to forget injustice or abandon legitimate demands for accountability. But neither can a country build its future if its entire political energy remains trapped in arguments about the past.
Every government inherits the grievances of the previous government and adds a few of its own. Every opposition believes that today’s rulers are temporary occupants who must eventually answer for their actions. Every political victory is treated as an opportunity to settle old scores. Every defeat becomes evidence of conspiracy. Institutions are pulled into disputes that political actors themselves appear unable or unwilling to resolve. Even dialogue has become part of the ritual. The government offers talks. The opposition questions the sincerity of the offer. Conditions are attached. Statements are exchanged. Committees are formed. Meetings are announced. Then the political temperature rises again. The latest invitation from the prime minister is welcome, but Pakistan has heard such invitations before. Dialogue becomes meaningful only when it is designed to solve something, not merely to demonstrate that one side offered it.
The tragedy is not simply political polarization. It is what polarization is costing the country. While politicians revisit yesterday, Pakistan is being asked to solve tomorrow’s problems. The economy needs sustained growth rather than temporary stabilization. Young people need jobs. Public education requires serious reform. The health system remains inaccessible to millions. Energy distribution is inefficient and expensive. Tax collection remains narrow. Climate disasters are becoming more frequent and more destructive. Water security is no longer a distant concern.None of these problems can wait for the next political settlement.
A factory does not postpone investment because politicians are fighting. A young graduate cannot postpone his future because parliament is polarized. A flood does not wait for political dialogue. A sick patient does not receive better treatment because the government and opposition have exchanged another statement. The citizen lives in present while political class remains imprisoned by the past.
There is another danger. When every political dispute becomes existential, compromise begins to look like betrayal. A politician who negotiates is accused of surrender. A government that makes concessions is accused of weakness. An opposition that participates in dialogue is accused of legitimizing an illegitimate system. But democracy was never designed to eliminate disagreement. It was designed to make disagreement survivable.
Political opponents do not have to like one another. They do not even have to trust one another. They must, however, accept that the country is larger than their rivalry. Pakistan urgently needs that distinction. The objective should not be to determine which political personality deserves permanence and which deserves exclusion. Nor should it be to protect governments from criticism or deny opposition parties their legitimate grievances. The objective should be something more basic, to create a political system in which no individual, party or government becomes so central to national life that the country cannot function without resolving its fate first. Perhaps Pakistan’s greatest political maturity would be the ability to say that justice and governance are not competing priorities.
Courts should decide cases. Governments should govern. Parliament should legislate. Opposition parties should hold governments accountable. Elections should settle political mandates. And citizens should not have to wait for all political disputes to disappear before their country begins moving forward. Pakistan does not need another political victory that leaves half the country feeling defeated.It needs an exit from the cycle.
Pakistan cannot keep reopening yesterday’s wounds while tomorrow’s children inherit the scars. At some point, political leaders must understand that winning the next confrontation matters far less than preventing the next one. We have spent too long asking who won the last political battle.
The harder question is whether Pakistan itself is winning. The answer is written on the faces of the young, a generation that has known little but anger, crisis and uncertainty. They did not choose our battles, yet they are being asked to live with their consequences. We created this cycle. We can choose to end it. The loop is ours to break before it becomes their destiny.
—The writer is PhD in Political Science, and visiting faculty at QAU Islamabad.
