Engineering Victimhood: Inside PTI’s Post-2022 Media Playbook

In today’s political chaos, what looks like a protest by PTI is actually something more calculated. Since being voted out in 2022, the party hasn’t just gone into opposition, it seems to have switched gears entirely. Instead of defending itself through facts, PTI is trying to win the battle of perception and that too by compromising national integrity. The strategy is becoming clear every passing day since the ouster: call legal action “persecution,” label arrests as “abductions,” and turn every enforcement step into a media spectacle.

This playbook seems to be built on key tactics: label every arrest as an “abduction,” recast lawful detentions as “kidnappings,” and saturate both domestic and foreign media with the party’s version of events. The aim of all these isn’t to resist injustice, it’s to control the narrative which keep loosing its grounds in a rationally driven world.

In 2023, this strategy became increasingly visible. Shireen Mazari’s legal detention under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) ordinance was instantly framed as an “abduction.” When Shehryar Afridi was transferred in the middle of the night, within legal procedure, it was dubbed “kidnapping.” Even the filmed, lawful arrest of Aliya Hamza was rebranded as a “disappearance.” All these terms were not errors in reporting, they were calculated efforts to blur the lines between legal process and political vendetta.

Ironically, this is the same party that once led accountability campaigns. The very institutions the party previously leaned on to prosecute rivals are now painted as tools of repression. Imran Khan, who personally endorsed anti-corruption drives during his premiership, now labels all legal scrutiny, from the Toshakhana case to the Al-Qadir Trust probe, as politically motivated. Yet, the cases themselves didn’t appear overnight. They are based on documented transactions and legal frameworks. What changed is not the evidence,  it is the party’s stance when it finds itself in the dock.

Even behind bars, Khan’s voice echoes loudly. Through loyal aides, social media, and international media platforms, he continues to shape public discourse. Letters to The Guardian and carefully crafted messages circulate faster than legal petitions move through courtrooms. Far from being silenced, the party’s messaging has become more disciplined, more emotive, and more globally oriented. This is not censorship; it’s narrative engineering.

Meanwhile, in courtrooms across Pakistan, PTI’s legal strategy tells its own story. The Toshakhana case alone has seen more than ten adjournments. From sudden medical excuses to abrupt lawyer swaps, the party leans on procedural delay, not substantive legal defense. The aim isn’t acquittal through evidence but evidently, it is deferral through attrition because the longer the process drags, the easier it becomes to cry foul and claim persecution. The most unfortunate part of this all is the fact that at the heart of this strategy lies a deeper, more corrosive ambition and that is, to delegitimize institutions. When every arrest is termed fascism and every court order is portrayed as a political conspiracy, public trust in the rule of law erodes. What starts as a media strategy ends as institutional decay. In the aftermath, courts are no longer seen as arbiters of justice but as extensions of political agendas. Law enforcement becomes a villain in every headline. And the public, already skeptical, withdraws further into partisan silos, as evident in every political opinion today.

This is not democratic resistance, it’s narrative warfare. The objective is not justice but disruption. By turning legal scrutiny into victimhood and framing accountability as oppression, PTI is building a political brand on institutional mistrust. Pakistan’s democracy, already fragile, cannot afford such erosion. Institutions must remain above partisan spin and PTI must recognise it. Because the challenge now is not just legal, it is communicative. A state that fails to defend the legitimacy of its institutions risks becoming hostage to those who thrive on their delegitimization.

In the end, what we’re witnessing is not just a party under pressure. It’s a political machine running a tested playbook, one where legal vulnerability is turned into public sympathy, and institutional checks are reframed as political betrayal. The longer this continues unchecked, the more fragile Pakistan’s democratic architecture becomes. And unfortunately, that’s the biggest dilemma of Pakistan’s political culture which PTI is unable to drop.