SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE MYTH OF PTI’S POPULARITY

For years, political analysts across the board, from pro-Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) commentators to supposedly neutral and anti-PTI observers, insisted that PTI was the most popular political party in the country. This narrative was even widely echoed by Western media outlets.

Lately, however, that conviction has eroded. Commentators first began backtracking by limiting their claims about PTI’s dominance to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), but even that has started to falter. What many mistook for widespread support may simply have been what political scientists refer to as “manufactured popularity.” Manufactured popularity is not a reflection of unmediated public sentiment. Instead, it is a carefully crafted construct accumulated through symbolic engineering, media management, state or institutional sponsorship, and the strategic exploitation of public disillusionment.

At its core, manufactured popularity depends on presenting a leader as a spotless saviour, who is capable of dismantling a ‘corrupt’ old order. This form of popularity is built on exaggerated promises and carefully curated media narratives. But the moment an engineered project makes the transition from opposition to executive power, tensions between rhetoric and governance begin to dissolve the illusion.

Throughout history, political regimes and movements have demonstrated how manufactured popularity can decay when confronted with cold realities. In the 1950s, former president Juan Perón’s initial popularity in Argentina was sustained by heavy state subsidies and nationalistic appeals. Yet, as economic historian Carlos Díaz-Alejandro documented in his analyses of Argentine economic history, the regime’s inability to sustain fiscal extravagance amidst soaring inflation and foreign exchange depletion eventually caused Perón’s populist economic model to unravel, hastening widespread unrest and military intervention.

While PTI’s online dominance is often taken as proof of overwhelming public support, digital visibility, electoral success and the ability to mobilise people on the streets are three very different measures of political strength

In post-communist Eastern Europe, the rise and fall of political movements that relied on media-driven anti-corruption narratives, such as Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha’s movement in Bulgaria during the early 2000s, illustrate that popularity constructed primarily on outsider status and high moral claims quickly evaporates when administrative ineptitude and economic compromises take hold in daily governance.

PTI, formed by Imran Khan in 1996, is an intriguing example. It remained a minor player on the margins of Pakistani politics till its transformation into a dominant force in 2011. The transformation was not merely an ‘awakening’ but also a carefully constructed political phenomenon. PTI’s popularity was methodically cultivated, mainly by the military establishment. Indeed, the party effectively mobilised a real sense of grievance among urban middle-class voters who were exhausted by the perceived ‘corruption’ of traditional parties such as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

But this was amplified by institutional engineering through a hybrid scheme. According to the Pakistani political scholar Muhammad Waseem, in this scheme, intelligence agencies steered the media narrative, weakened political opponents, and directed influential political “electables” towards PTI.

The architecture of PTI’s popularity was heavily built on a modern communication strategy. According to the media researcher Ifrah Nadeem, PTI pioneered the use of “computational propaganda.” It unleashed tightly targeted social media campaigns, and emotional messaging. By leveraging digital spaces, the party bypassed mainstream journalistic scrutiny, portraying Khan as an incorruptible reformer who alone could usher in a ‘Naya [New] Pakistan.’

According to economists such as Atif Mian and academic assessments by the International Crisis Group, governing a state such as Pakistan that is under severe balance-of-payments distress required unpopular policy adjustments. But this contradicted PTI’s idealised campaign claims. So, when Khan was placed in power in 2018, the election of an ‘honest leader’ was framed by the party as a good enough condition for economic revival and institutional purification.

But Khan blundered his way across almost all vital areas of governance. This resulted in the gradual pullback of the military establishment’s patronage of his regime. Therefore, the manufactured framework sustaining the government collapsed, culminating in Khan’s removal via a constitutional vote of no-confidence in 2022.

The erosion of manufactured popularity reveals a recurring dynamic in politics. According to the American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, while media manipulation, emotional appeals and institutional patronage can create an impression of overwhelming public approval, they cannot transform into tangible administrative competence and economic stability. While failing leaders who were elevated through manufactured popularity often switch to narratives of victimisation or conspiracy to retain a dedicated core, the initial perception of popularity begins to alter when tested by on-ground political realities.

But here’s the interesting bit: even after Khan’s fall, the narrative of his ‘popularity’ did not recede as such. At least not in the media. Political commentators and international monitoring groups viewed the support for PTI-backed candidates in the 2024 general elections as proof of this. However, one can posit that this was largely achieved through PTI’s formal and informal social media apparatus transitioning the party’s narrative from that of producing an incorruptible saviour to one of moral victimisation.

In the aftermath of Khan’s arrest in 2023, PTI’s media apparatus cleverly converted the general public anger over rising inflation and political instability (which Khan’s regime left behind), into an unquestioning loyalty to the imprisoned Khan. This was further reinforced by digital algorithms that amplified symbolic/performative acts of resistance, creating an impression of impressive public mobilisation.

However, the eventual reality check occurred when the limits of this online and sentiment-based popularity were tested on the ground. The definitive moment arrived when the current coalition government-imposed emergency measures and governor’s rule in KP recently, sidelining PTI’s provincial government there. Contrary to expectations of an uprising, the public response was muted. The failure of the party to mobilise street demonstrations underscored a disconnect between online sentiment and real-life capacity.

This led political analysts to re-evaluate the nature of the party’s popular base. They began recognising that much of what had been interpreted as deep political commitment was, in fact, passive sympathy, digital noise, and an anti-establishment protest vote rather than an organised, resilient political movement.

The illusion of overwhelming popularity unravels when passive sympathisers who express support on social media or through voting, decline to transform into active political actors on the streets. They are in the majority, and many are even stationed abroad.

The loss of PTI’s last institutional foothold in KP demonstrates that, while manufactured popularity and grievance-based narratives can maintain an electoral pull, they remain inherently fragile when confronted with state power, and the reality of growing public apathy. The electoral pull too is now likely to recede, especially with the likelihood of Khan remaining behind bars in the foreseeable future.

Published in Dawn, EOS, November 1st, 2026