FOR over a decade, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has been under PTI rule, not because of genuine public mandate, but because of engineered continuity.

Promises of ‘tabdeeli’ have long given way to political stagnation, weakening institutions and scandals that multiply unchecked. Governance has faltered at every level, public resources have been mismanaged and the province’s people bear the brunt of policies that were meant to empower them but instead exploited them. What was sold as transformation has revealed itself as a cautionary tale: KP was never truly empowered, it was used.

The tragedy of KP is not just that a party failed, failures happen in politics. The tragedy is that this failure was protected, prolonged and repeatedly installed despite glaring incompetence, financial mismanagement and institutional decay. From 2013 to 2025, PTI ruled KP uninterruptedly, each time returning through an invisible cushion of support from the powers that mattered. Even when performance indicators nosedived, scandals exploded and government projects turned into cautionary tales, KP remained the controlled political playground of one party. This artificial continuity robbed KP of accountability, alternative governance and the fresh political competition every province needs.

The biggest myth sold to the people was that PTI had transformed KP institutions. The reality is the opposite. The province’s institutional backbone, police, health, local government, public financial management, stands weaker today than it did thirteen years ago. Police........

© Pakistan Observer