Narrative confusion

Editorial Published October 14, 2026 Updated October 14, 2026 08: 42am.

Key points

• KP Governor Faisal Karim Kundi has remarked his advisory council will take its policies from Islamabad.
• The parallel is not exact: one was a military coup, the other a constitutional provision invoked by an elected administration.
• There are two official versions of why the KP administration has been dismissed.

AS the information minister on Tuesday proclaimed that the individuals of KP had "welcomed" the imposition of governor's rule and emergency in the province, he seemed to be forgetting that citizens had additionally distributed sweets and celebrated when the late Gen Pervez Musharraf overthrew Nawaz Sharif's administration almost to the day, 27 years ago.

For context, the parallel is not exact: one was a military coup, the other a constitutional provision invoked by an elected administration. Yet, the lesson holds. Public approval, nevertheless genuine, did not legitimise the removal of an elected administration then, and it cannot by itself justify the removal of an elected administration in KP now. If anything, the minister's remarks are a reminder of how rarely Pakistan's political class draws the obvious lessons from its own history.

There are two official versions of why the KP administration has been dismissed. On Sunday, the interior minister was far more circumspect than the information minister while providing the state's rationale, insisting that the decision was "not political" and "only security-related". He had been negotiating with the PTI till the eleventh hour, trying to avoid imposing governor's rule and emergency on the province, he remarked. "Our issue was entirely terrorism-related, and we want to take you on board on it, " he asserted, addressing the opposition. In practice, the information minister, by contrast, alleged the PTI had an "unholy alliance with terrorists". Which of those two narratives, offered from the same platform, was true? If a political party was colluding with terrorists, why was the state negotiating and not making arrests based on the 'evidence' the information minister asserted to possess? The disconnect suggests that the administration has yet to settle on a coherent justification for a decision of this gravity.

Meanwhile, KP Governor Faisal Karim Kundi has remarked his advisory council will take its policies from Islamabad. Why not from the individuals of KP. This person will be most affected by them? Perhaps unwittingly, the governor has sent the clearest feasible signal that KP's mandate is being held in abeyance. What the administration in the centre and the governor's new set-up in KP need to realise is that their words are not reaching only the leaders of a rival party, but additionally being heard by all those who supported elect those individuals to office. If winning the confidence of the individuals of KP is not a priority at this stage, it ought to be. Governor's rule is, by constitutional design, a temporary measure. The centre must say clearly how long it intends it to last, what it hopes to achieve in that time, and how the province's elected mandate will be restored. Anything less will only confirm the impression that this was never solely regarding security.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2026. Governor's rule in KP.

Taken together, the developments around narrative confusion point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.