February 8, 2024 was a day of reckoning in our political milieu. Pakistan's fragile and traumatised democratic mosaic witnessed a unique spirit of buoyancy as landslide votes were cast to a party that contested apolitically. The PTI of Imran Khan won with a thumping majority as its leadership remained incarcerated. Independent candidates canvassed and returned on more than 224 electoral signs – as the party's iconic symbol, cricket bat, was outlawed by the then chief justice of Pakistan in an unprecedented ultra vires act of victimisation. Since then, the electoral commission has done all it can to push the PTI to the wall, notably denying the party its due share of reserved seats under the shadows of yet another contested judgment. And the rest is all too evident, as abject political instability is taking a toll.

The 'coalition of the unwilling' having bestowed with power, sans legitimacy, has defaced the 1973 Constitution. The 26th and 27th amendments have rendered a lethal blow to the independence of judiciary, undermined the supremacy of the........

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