Disruptive politics - love of people or lust for power.

It was on 30 Jan 2020, when I penned 'Imran Khan - the dying pangs of a dream' (https://tribune.com.pk/story/2146669/6-imran-khan-dying-pangs-dream/), providing a premise to the events of May 9, 2023. These events are not going to go away easily, without political, psychological and material cost and without haunting the perpetrators. This crisis has raised important points.

First, PTI miscalculated and misread Pakistan's political culture. A bruised Miltablishment led the PTI camp to erroneously believe that a final popular putsch would unravel Miltablishment, sweeping it away in torrents of PTI-led discontent, along with PDM, enabled into power by Miltablishment under Gen Bajwa. The groundwork for this was laid meticulously months before, through deliberate and assiduously executed social media campaigns, targeting the youth, the retired military community and the silent majority. The credit goes to the 1,000 or so PTI media-warriors on KP government's payroll, who fought this war to near success...poisoning minds, twisting facts and amplifying PTI's narrative of haqeeqi azadi through meme-generation, using AI, fake accounts and skewed content. That azadi was cleverly steered from the azadi from the US/West (realising its folly and futility) to azadi from the Miltablishment.

The second PTI miscalculation was IK's all-out efforts to avoid arrest, resisting and using party cohort as human shield, rebuffing the state authority. It appeared IK was afraid of arrest and jail-time and did not want to leave the comforts of Bani Gala/Zaman Park for some inexplicable reasons. He requested the Supreme Court for night stay at Bani Gala once granted protective bail. A soft leader afraid of arrest, apparently is not a long-term political investment. The merit of his arrest notwithstanding.

Third miscalculation was steering Party's anger against the Army, under its new leadership. For this, meticulous planning was undertaken with ranking leadership tasked to lead party workers against specific targets nation-wide. PTI confused Army's current leadership with Gen Bajwa. If an erstwhile DGI can pick up the courage to advise the Prime Minister on intimate family matters involving corruption, you need to draw different parallels.

Diverting the angst against the Army was caused by Army, ostensibly, not interceding with PDM for early elections. So, the Party thought it was free to hold the Army responsible and attack it with abandon. Confronting the Army was...