A video clip from the second day of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) protest with former prime minister Imran Khan's wife, Bushra Bibi, standing on a truck alongside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and saying that she will stay with the protest till her "last breath" and that she needed the people of Pakistan to come out in large numbers for the sake of the country would have indeed heartened most PTI supporters.
On that day and the next day as well, the PTI' final call' protest march gained momentum far beyond previous protests and the thousands who had descended on the federal capital, Islamabad. Eventually, they managed to reach D-Chowk, goaded on by another video message from Bushra Bibi, which was relayed far and wide on social media.
This was in the second half of November 26, and PTI protesters had climbed onto the wall of containers placed by the government to guard the Red Zone around D-Chowk. However, in the next few hours, the march dissipated rapidly, so much so that by the next morning PTI supporters woke up shocked to find that there was no trace of the protestors or any of the party's leadership who were leading them, in particular Bushra Bibi and KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur.
The following day, recriminations within the party began – with many party leaders questioning Bushra Bibi's role and asking why the protesters had been taken to D-Chowk, where they would be vulnerable to a crackdown, instead of a location away from the Red Zone to which even Imran Khan had agreed. More details surfaced, and these centred on the KP chief minister. On November 26, he was quoted as telling protesters that they should "go home, have dinner, and come back tomorrow". Clearly, this would be taken as a message that the protest march was effectively over, especially given that most of the protesters were not residents of Islamabad and had come from KP.
Whatever bargaining power or position the party and Imran Khan had because of the large number of protesters that did show up is gone, and one would expect that both the government and the establishment would now take an inflexible line
Clearly, there was no planning involved. Unlike in 2014, when the PTI dharna lasted for over four months – with help from the establishment – this time around, there was no institutional support of any kind, and food, housing, and shelter for the protesters would have to be catered for, and most importantly, paid for. The protest would have had a greater impact if the protesters had stayed, and most people assumed that this was the plan all along. But the absence of any major support presumably meant that this wasn't going to last long – but no one expected that it would wither away so quickly either.
So the most obvious question that comes to mind is what next for the PTI and for Imran Khan?
The answers to that should be obvious. The party is greatly weakened, and it's unlikely that any future protest call will see any significant turnout at all. Why would the party's supporters keep coming out on the road when they see that their own leaders are always absent and protesting mostly via Twitter/X. The failed protest has shown to everyone that the party's Punjab leadership was unable or unwilling to get people to come and join the protesters who were, by and large, from KP. In fact, this raises another question: why were PTI supporters from KP fighting to take back the "stolen mandate" which occurred mostly on National Assembly seats in Punjab? Furthermore, whatever bargaining power or position the party and Imran Khan had because of the large number of protesters that did show up is gone, and one would expect that both the government and the establishment would now take an inflexible line.
Of course, had the former prime minister taken the more practical and rational path of talking to and building bridges with other political parties – instead of repeatedly insisting that he will talk only to the establishment (and in the same breath also claiming to fight for democracy!) – things might have turned out differently for the PTI.
The only way forward for the PTI now is to go back to Parliament and try and make some common ground with other political parties. As for when Imran Khan is released, that is unlikely to happen any time soon, given the events of the past few days.