THERE have been times in Pakistan’s history, however fleeting, that our formal democratic institutions approximated the ‘people’s will’. In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, today we are very much on the opposite end of the spectrum.

By all accounts, the hybrid regime is about to disfigure what remains of the Constitution through the 28th amendment, or whatever they end up calling it. The ceremonial exercise known as the federal budget announcement has been delayed apparently for this purpose. Even a document largely copy-pasted for the IMF to ratify that Pakistan’s long-suffering working people will continue to be sacrificed to imperial dependencies and an oversized national security apparatus has to be held back because the other imperative is more urgent.

And what is that imperative? By all accounts, the primary objective of the amendment is to take back at least some of the powers and money devolved to the provinces under the 18th Amendment. Democratic struggle throughout Pakistan’s history has pivoted on cutting the unitary, bureaucratic and militarised state down to size. One can only wonder if the lot currently sitting in parliament, who have presided over the 26th and 27th amendments, and will also sanctify the 28th, recognise the irony of their historical role.

Yes, Pakistan’s history is full of co-opted political players who have done the establishment’s bidding. Ayub’s Basic Democrats, Ziaul Haq’s Majlis-i-Shoora and Musharraf’s Q Leaguers all come to mind. But all of those political manipulations and compromises were set upon a backdrop of more robust democratic struggle in society at large — trade and student unions, mass peasant mobilisations, an intelligentsia that refused to be completely bought out, and all manner of artistic and cultural resistance. Today’s Pakistan is much more hollowed out.

Working people are at breaking point.

Balochistan is a case in point. The narrative of the ubiquitous foreign hand continues to be reproduced. The truth is that almost all space for democratic politics has been wiped out. The youth-led BYC has been suppressed. Students are often disappeared and civilian life in general is cheap. It is hardly a surprise that the insurgency continues. Meanwhile in KP, the PTI government has been reduced to performative actions. The anti-war PTM has been banned. The TTP is running riot. Democratic politics is conspicuous by its absence.

Sindh boasted the most substantive mass mobilisation in recent times when a wide cross-section of society poured onto the roads against the proposed six canal project (an initiative that will surely be revitalised after the upcoming legislative heist). The relative success of that mobilisation should not distract from the fact that, here too, formal political institutions are withering away. On the one hand, this is explained by the PPP’s roots in rural fiefdoms, and on the other, by the ruling party’s surrendering of all other space to the establishment.

Formal political institutions in Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir are even more paralysed. Elections are being held in both regions because those holding the reins know that they can create a dispensation to suit their needs no matter what happens on polling day.

The political forces that are currently part of the hybrid set-up seem to have effectively accepted that the democratic urges that once ran deep in Pakistani society cannot be resuscitated and the only object of politi­­cs is to stay in po­­w­er. The clampdown on all forms of spe­ech, including digital, as well as the incarceration of all kinds of political dissidents — Imaan Mazari-Hazir, Ali Wazir, Mahrang Baloch and Imran Khan are just the most prominent — is happening in full view of the sitting members of the National Assembly and Senate, the supposed bastions of popular sovereignty.

So where does this leave us? What can be said for certain is that the current dispensation will not last forever. Pakistan’s working people are at breaking point, even if they have no political vehicles to represent them at the present time. This is not a moment of stability, no matter what is being said about the country’s diplomatic prowess at home and abroad.

There is only so long that repression and economic hardship can coexist, especially in a context where young people with heady aspirations make up the majority of the population. The eruption of the online phenomenon known as the Cockroach Janta Party in neighbouring India — where Hindutva is running riot and the much touted ‘middle class’ is disappearing — is telling. Unfortunately, sporadic outbursts of digital outrage only confirm just how hollowed out the polity has become.

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2026