Pakistan’s Political Landscape: Governance, Reforms, Elections and Challenges, 2025 to Late 2026

Where the story starts

To understand 2025 you need three facts about 2024.

1. The election of 8 February 2024 was disputed. Imran Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, had lost its election symbol, so its candidates stood as independents. They still won more seats than any party. PTI says the count was rigged to deny it a majority. The Election Commission and the government deny that.
2. A coalition took office anyway. The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) formed a government with the support of the Pakistan Peoples Party. Shehbaz Sharif became prime minister and Asif Ali Zardari became president.
3. Imran Khan was already in prison. He had been arrested in August 2023 and has not been free since.

Everything since then has followed from those three facts: a government whose mandate the opposition rejects, an opposition whose leader cannot leave his cell, and institutions asked to referee between them.

The government says it rescued a country on the edge of default and gave it stability. The opposition says stability was bought by taking away the voters’ choice. Both describe the same two years.

The two amendments

The largest changes of the period were made to the Constitution itself.

The 26th Amendment (October 2024)

Until 2024 the most senior judge of the Supreme Court became chief justice automatically. The 26th Amendment ended that.

• A committee of parliamentarians now chooses the chief justice from the three most senior judges.
• The chief justice serves a fixed term of three years.
• Constitutional cases go to special constitutional benches, whose judges are picked by a commission on which politicians sit.

The government said this restored Parliament’s proper role. Lawyers’ groups and the opposition said it gave the government a hand in choosing the judges who hear cases against it.

The reserved seats

Pakistan’s assemblies have seats reserved for women and non-Muslims, shared out among parties according to the general seats they win. Because PTI’s members had been elected as independents, its share was disputed.

The effect of the second ruling was large. The governing coalition now held two-thirds of the National Assembly, the number needed to change the Constitution.

The 27th Amendment (November 2025)

It used that majority in November 2025. The 27th Amendment was passed by the Senate and the National Assembly within days and signed by the president on 13 November 2025. Press reports say only four members of the National Assembly voted against it, after PTI’s members walked out.

Within hours of the signing, two of the most senior judges of the Supreme Court, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Athar Minallah, resigned in protest. A judge of the Lahore High Court followed. The government said their letters did not identify anything in the amendment that attacked the Constitution.

What each side says

The army’s place

Pakistan’s military has always been the strongest institution in the state. In this period its formal role grew.

• In May 2025 India and Pakistan fought a four-day conflict with missiles, drones and aircraft, after an attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir that India blamed on Pakistan-based militants and Pakistan denied any part in. It ended with a ceasefire announced by the American president. Both countries claimed success.
• Days later the army chief, General Asim Munir, was promoted to Field Marshal, only the second in the country’s history.
• In November 2025 the 27th Amendment made him the first Chief of Defence Forces.
• A body called the Special Investment Facilitation Council, on which generals sit beside ministers, steers large investment decisions.
• In May 2025 the Supreme Court’s constitutional bench allowed civilians to be tried in military courts for the attacks on army buildings of 9 May 2023.
• In December 2025 the army announced that a military court had sentenced a former head of the main intelligence agency, Faiz Hameed, to 14 years in prison. It was the first such sentence in the country’s history.

Supporters of this arrangement call it a “hybrid” system that has delivered order and foreign investment. Opponents say elected governments have become junior partners.

The opposition

Imran Khan

The former prime minister has been held at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi for most of the period. The main cases against him stood as follows, according to press reports.

He denies every charge and says the cases exist to keep him out of politics. The government says the courts are independent and he is being treated as any accused person would be.

PTI after 9 May

On 9 May 2023, after Mr Khan’s first arrest, crowds attacked military buildings. The consequences have run through the party ever since.

• In July 2025 an anti-terrorism court in Faisalabad sentenced dozens of PTI figures to ten years in prison. They included the opposition leaders of both houses of Parliament, Omar Ayub Khan and Shibli Faraz.
• The Election Commission then disqualified them, and both posts fell vacant.
• By-elections on 23 November 2025 for seats vacated this way were won mostly by PML-N.
• The posts stayed empty for five months. In January 2026 they went to two of Mr Khan’s allies from smaller parties: Mahmood Khan Achakzai in the National Assembly and Raja Nasir Abbas in the Senate. Neither is a member of PTI.

PTI’s formal chairman is the lawyer Gohar Ali Khan. The party is divided between those who favour talks and those who favour the street, and its leadership inside prison and outside it does not always speak with one voice.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: the one province

PTI governs only Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In October 2025 its chief minister, Ali Amin Gandapur, resigned on Mr Khan’s instructions and was replaced by Sohail Afridi, a younger and more confrontational figure.

The province is also where most militant attacks happen. The federal government accuses the provincial government of being soft on militants. The provincial government accuses Islamabad of running military operations without its consent and of withholding the province’s money.

October 2026: talks and a march

This quarrel came to a head as this article was written.

1. PTI announced a “long march” on Islamabad to demand Mr Khan’s release, first for 27 September 2026, then for 4 October.
2. Federal ministers spoke publicly of governor’s rule or an emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
3. The two sides met in the Speaker’s office from 2 October.
4. The talks collapsed in the early hours of 4 October. Each side blamed the other. Reports say they could not agree on anti-militant operations in the province or on access to Mr Khan.
5. The march set off the same day from the south of the province, led by the chief minister. By 7 October it had not reached Islamabad, and its route had been changed.

No report was found of governor’s rule being imposed. What happened next is not covered here.

The coalition

The government is a partnership of rivals. PML-N holds the prime minister’s office and Punjab. The PPP holds the presidency, the Senate chairmanship, Sindh and Balochistan, but has taken no federal ministries. It supports the government from outside the cabinet.

The partners have quarrelled openly:

• over a plan to build new canals on the Indus system, which Sindh opposed and which was shelved in April 2025 after weeks of protest;
• over flood relief and the sharing of money between the centre and the provinces;
• over credit for the things that have gone well.

Each time, the partnership held. Neither party has an obvious alternative, and both gained from the two amendments.

In February 2025 the prime minister enlarged his cabinet substantially, a move critics said sat oddly with promises to shrink the government.

Elections

No general election was held in this period. The next is due by early 2029.

Hundreds of petitions challenging results from February 2024 went to election tribunals. Most were dismissed or remained undecided long past the legal deadline, a point made repeatedly by the independent observer group FAFEN.

Laws and governance

Parliament was busy. Among the laws passed:

• Cybercrime law changes (January 2025), which made spreading “false” information online a crime punishable by prison. Journalists’ unions protested. The government said the law targets deliberate lies, not reporting.
• A ban on child marriage in Islamabad (May 2025), setting the minimum age at 18. Balochistan passed its own law in November 2025 and Punjab’s assembly did so in April 2026.
• A domestic violence law for Islamabad (January 2026), passed at a joint sitting of Parliament.
• Changes to the Army, Navy and Air Force Acts to match the 27th Amendment.

The government’s own claim to success rests mostly on the economy: reserves rebuilt, the credit rating raised, the national airline sold and growth of 3.7 per cent in the year to June 2026. Inflation, however, returned to double digits in the summer of 2026.

Challenges

Security

Violence by militant groups has risen every year since 2021. Groups that track it reported that 2024 and 2025 were the deadliest years in about a decade. The worst-affected areas are Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. In March 2025 separatists in Balochistan hijacked a passenger train, an attack without precedent.

Pakistan blames militants sheltering in Afghanistan. In October 2025 the two countries’ forces fought along the border before a ceasefire was arranged with the help of Qatar and Türkiye. Border trade has been disrupted for long periods since.

Rights and the press

Human rights groups, journalists’ bodies and United Nations experts raised concerns during the period about military trials of civilians, the cybercrime law, internet shutdowns, the arrest of Baloch and Pashtun activists and enforced disappearances. The government rejects much of this criticism and says it is fighting terrorism and disinformation.

The federation

Three of the four provinces have a complaint against the centre: Sindh over water, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa over security and money, Balochistan over resources and rights. The formula that shares tax revenue between the centre and the provinces has not been renewed since 2010.

Legitimacy

The deepest challenge is the simplest. A large share of voters believe the last election did not reflect their choice. The government believes it is delivering results that will be rewarded in time. Until an election that all sides accept is held, that disagreement will shape everything else.

The main parties at a glance

Words used in this article

Timeline

What to watch next

• The march and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: whether the confrontation ends in talks, in governor’s rule or in neither.
• The Federal Constitutional Court: how it rules on challenges to the amendments and to election results.
• Imran Khan’s appeals.
• The coalition: whether PML-N and the PPP stay together through the next budget.
• Local elections in Punjab, which have not been held for years.

For the basics behind this article, read our plain-English guide to Pakistan’s politics and our explainers on the vote of no confidence and the caretaker government.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Arab News, “Two Pakistan top court judges resign in protest as 27th constitutional amendment becomes law” — November 2025.
• Gulf News, “Explained: What Pakistan’s 27th constitutional amendment proposes” — November 2025.
• Jurist, “Pakistan dispatch: constitutional amendment reshapes judicial power and cements military authority” — a critical legal commentary, November 2025.
• The News, “Achakzai notified as NA opposition leader, filling long-vacant post” — January 2026.
• Aaj English, “Raja Nasir Abbas appointed leader of the opposition in Senate” — January 2026.
• Aaj English, “PML-N on course for clean sweep in Punjab by-elections” — November 2025.
• Aaj English, “May 9 case: Omar Ayub among 59 PTI leaders sentenced to 10 years in prison” — July 2025.
• Geo News, “PTI begins Islamabad long march after talks breakdown” — October 2026.
• ARY News, “Govt, PTI talks conclude in Islamabad” — 2 October 2026.
• Dawn, “Economy grows 3.7pc in FY26 — fastest in four years, but short of target” — 11 June 2026.
• National Assembly of Pakistan — for the text of laws and the list of members.