Though Khan’s supporters have shattered the army’s charisma and aura of being the institution of last resort that can assist the people, this is a temporary setback. Just as the army recovered from the humiliation of the defeat to India in 1971 and after al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was found and eliminated in Abbottabad in 2011, it will claw back in due course.

In the medium-term, Pakistan faces multiple crises. There is a political crisis, often with constitutional implications, a deepening economic crisis, the worst climate-induced floods in the country’s history, a resurgence of terrorist violence with transborder implications, and a judicial crisis with a growing confrontation between the judiciary and the legislature/executive.

Pakistan has never been as polarised as it is today, and the confrontation between parties does not appear amenable to resolution in Parliament. The pivot of such a situation is Khan’s unbridled ambition to win back power since he was removed democratically in April 2021. Unless that happens, confrontational politics and instability will be the reality until the general elections, as and when they are held. The catch is that the PTI may not participate in the polls if Khan is disqualified. Likewise, if the elections do not return him to power, the PTI will probably not accept the verdict, and return to street politics.

It is unlikely that the army leadership will let Khan return to power, especially not after what his supporters did on May 9. Khan will, therefore, either be disqualified or be made to lose the next elections with some sound old-fashioned political engineering.

The most visible symbol of the economic crisis is the large number of people who have died in stampedes while collecting atta. The key elements of the economic crisis are: External debt repayments that Pakistan cannot meet with its existing foreign exchange reserves; back-breaking inflation hovering around 47%; the steep escalation in energy prices; and the International Monetary Fund programme not being finalised so far.

The trigger for the judicial crisis has been the perception that the chief justice of the Supreme Court (SC) is acting as a proxy for Khan. He has fiddled around with the formation of benches and used their decisions selectively to formulate judgments in Khan’s favour. This led to divisions within the SC getting a political colour, and the top judges seen as associated with one political narrative or the other. The apex court’s decision calling Khan’s arrest illegal, and demanding his immediate release on Friday, will only add to this perception.

In an act of open defiance, the National Assembly and the federal cabinet refused to abide by the SC ruling that suo motu (on its own) fixed May 14 as the election date for the Punjab assembly; Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called the verdict a “murder of justice”. This points to a serious confrontation between the two institutions.

As if these were not serious enough challenges, Pakistan faces a grim security situation due to a renewed wave of terrorist violence. The Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP), bolstered by the Taliban victory in Afghanistan, has struck in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Balochistan and even the national capital Islamabad. Additionally, clashes with the Taliban on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border underline the growing security problems for Pakistan.

In addition to the immediate and medium-term crises, Pakistan is faced with severe long-term crises, as exemplified by its struggles in managing WEEP, an acronym that I had coined for Water, Education, Economy and Population in my 2016 book Pakistan: Courting the Abyss. I had asked: Is Pakistan ungovernable, or are its leaders incapable of governing Pakistan? I argue that it’s a bit of both. WEEP are the long-term non-traditional security threats that eat the innards of any country. They take decades to deteriorate and take even longer to rectify. Pakistan faced an emergency in all four domains a decade ago and 2016 should have been an inflection point when the administration needed to have kicked into disaster management mode. But there were no signs of that then, or even now.

If the short- and medium-term crises are combined with the long-term threats, the scale of the crisis in Pakistan can well be imagined. There does not appear to be a solution to any one of these crises, let alone all. Pakistan is thus a country where the challenges have become more formidable than the capabilities and capacities of the leadership, both civil and army. The leadership has neither the vision nor the ability to do so. Hence, the situation is fast becoming untenable, and this is why Pakistan may be quick marching towards a meltdown.

Tilak Devasher is an author and Member, National Security Advisory BoardThe views expressed are personal