Even before its formal launch, PTI’s latest protest movement has run into internal controversy. It is a rather inauspicious start to an effort that aims to release Imran Khan from jail.

This is vintage PTI. Plagued by infighting, riven by power plays, and consumed by jealousies, Khan’s party today paints a picture of a disparate grouping of individuals unable to make good decisions, unwilling to form a coherent strategy and unsuited to generate mass mobilization for a movement. The events of the last few days have reinforced these multiple failures.

First Aleema Khan said Khan had ordered a protest movement to start and climax on August 5. Then Ali Amin Gandapur said the protest would culminate in ninety days. Then Aliya Hamza, chief organizer for Punjab, said in so many words she had no idea what Gandapur meant. Then Sheikh Waqas Akram, the party’s information secretary, severely reprimanded Aliya Hamza in a leaked audio message for leaking his private message to the media. And all this when the protests are still an academic discussion.

The party’s natural state of confusion is yet again on full display. Three points stand out.

First, when Khan said, as per his sister, that the movement should........

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