Pakistani politics has always moved in cycles — rise, romance, rupture. But some moments are not cycles. They are closures.
The sentencing of Imran Khan to 17 years in prison with financial penalties is not merely a legal development. It is a political punctuation mark. A full stop. It signals the end of an era that once promised moral clarity and delivered institutional collision.
This is not about sympathy or vendetta. This is about consequence.
From Symbol to System Stress-Test
Imran Khan’s ascent was built on symbolism. A World Cup hero. An outsider. A man who spoke in absolutes to a nation exhausted by compromise. Through Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, he offered Pakistan something intoxicating: the belief that intent alone could substitute experience, and rhetoric could outrun governance.
For a while, it worked.
Young voters rallied. Old parties trembled. The political order bent.
But symbolism collapses the moment it meets the machinery of the state — economy, diplomacy, bureaucracy, law. And when tested, Khan’s leadership did not reform institutions; it personalized them.
Governance became grievance. Accountability became selectivity. Dissent became betrayal.
