Beyond the Question of Imran Khan
Mohammad Malick’s recent interview raised a question far larger than the future of Imran Khan, PTI, PML-N or PPP: where will Pakistan’s next generation of capable leaders come from?
Malick’s criticism of the bureaucracy was especially important. His argument was that Pakistan’s governance failure cannot be explained simply by blaming politicians. A weak, compromised or corrupt administrative system can become the mechanism through which political corruption is facilitated and protected.
That point deserves much more attention. Pakistan’s recurring crisis is not merely a crisis of personalities. It is a leadership-production crisis.
The Circus of Recycled Leadership
For decades, Pakistan has moved through a familiar cycle. Civilian politicians lose credibility. The military intervenes directly or becomes the dominant political arbiter. New civilian faces are encouraged, supported or accommodated. Eventually that relationship deteriorates. Civilian governments weaken or disappear. Military influence expands.
Then, when the military-led or military-dominated arrangement also fails to solve Pakistan’s structural problems, many of the same civilian political families return.
And the cycle begins again.
The deeper failure is that Pakistan has never created a reliable national system for discovering, preparing and advancing competent leaders independent of family name, wealth, landholding, patronage or establishment blessing.
Popularity Is Not the Same as Governability
This is where Malick’s observations about Imran Khan become relevant.
Imran Khan may remain exceptionally popular. But popularity alone does not create an effective government. A successful prime minister must select competent ministers, understand institutions, tolerate disagreement, negotiate, build coalitions, manage a professional bureaucracy and distinguish political loyalty from administrative competence.
The same standard must apply to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Maryam Nawaz, future PTI leaders and anyone else aspiring to govern Pakistan.
The question should no longer be only: Who can win an election?
It should also be: Who has been prepared to govern after winning it?
Those are very different qualifications.
Technocrats Should Strengthen Democracy, Not Replace It
There is an understandable temptation to say: forget politicians and bring in economists, engineers, doctors, business executives and other specialists.
That would also be a mistake.
Technocrats possess expertise. They do not automatically possess democratic legitimacy, political judgment or the ability to reconcile competing public interests. Pakistan needs politicians who understand governance and technocrats who understand that they serve constitutional government.
A finance ministry needs serious economic competence. A health ministry needs people who understand health systems. Education, energy, water, climate, digital transformation, infrastructure and foreign affairs all require expertise that no political slogan can substitute for.
But elected leaders must ultimately make—and answer for—political decisions.
What Successful States Do Differently
Successful states do not leave leadership development entirely to chance.
Singapore has long treated senior public-service leadership as something to be deliberately identified, developed and tested across assignments. Chile developed a Senior Public Management system intended to bring greater merit and professional competence into important public appointments while preserving democratic authority. South Korea’s development experience likewise demonstrates the value of technically capable institutions, strategic state capacity and a professional bureaucracy.
Pakistan does not need to copy another country’s political system.
The lesson is simpler: competent governments manufacture competence. They identify talent early, expose leaders to progressively harder responsibilities, reward performance and build institutions that retain expertise beyond one government.
The Bureaucracy Is the Missing Part of the Corruption Debate
Pakistanis often discuss corruption as though politicians personally conduct every corrupt transaction.
They cannot.
Large-scale corruption normally requires an administrative chain. Someone prepares the file. Someone writes the tender. Someone manipulates specifications. Someone authorizes payment. Someone provides a legal interpretation. Someone signs the approval.
That is why bureaucratic reform is central to political reform.
A corrupt politician without administrative collaborators has limited reach. A corrupt political-business-bureaucratic network can capture an entire ministry. The same principle applies wherever powerful interests—civilian, commercial or institutional—seek favorable decisions from the state.
Civil servants therefore cannot be treated either as innocent victims of politicians or as an untouchable permanent establishment. They exercise power, and power requires accountability.
Pakistan Already Has Institutions—Use Them Better
Pakistan does not necessarily need another magnificent building in Islamabad, another director general and another fleet of government vehicles.
It already has institutions such as the National School of Public Policy and the Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services.
Build on them.
Pakistan could establish a genuinely nonpartisan National Governance Leadership Programme bringing together promising elected representatives, mayors, local-government leaders, senior civil servants, economists, engineers, physicians, educators, technology specialists, private-sector managers, academics and diaspora Pakistanis with relevant expertise.
Participants should study public finance, constitutional government, negotiation, foreign affairs, national security, project management, technology, ethics, procurement, federalism and local government—and then work on real Pakistani problems rather than simply collect certificates.
Political Parties Must Build Successors, Not Just Loyalists
This responsibility cannot be outsourced entirely to the state.
PTI should be developing twenty or thirty nationally credible leaders—not merely television defenders of Imran Khan. PPP should be preparing leaders beyond one family. PML-N should do the same. Smaller parties should develop their own policy and governance cadres.
Every serious party should be able to answer practical questions:
Who are our strongest people to manage finance? Who understands health systems? Who can lead energy reform? Who understands agriculture, technology, education and water? Who can represent Pakistan internationally?
A political party that cannot answer those questions is not yet prepared to govern, no matter how popular its leader may be.
Leadership Should Begin Locally
Perhaps the most important reform would also be the least glamorous: restore meaningful local government.
Future national leaders should emerge from governing cities and districts. Let them first demonstrate that they can improve schools, manage sanitation, build roads, balance budgets, attract investment, respond to disasters and answer directly to citizens.
Local government creates thousands of laboratories in which a country can discover who can actually govern.
Pakistan too often tries to produce national leaders directly from inheritance, celebrity, patronage or establishment approval. A functioning local-government system would create a much broader and more democratic leadership pipeline.
Rebuild the Civil Service Around Merit and Expertise
Leadership reform without bureaucratic reform will fail.
Pakistan should move steadily toward specialization rather than permanent generalism; transparent qualifications for senior administrative posts; fixed tenure for competent officers; measurable performance agreements; carefully designed lateral entry for outstanding specialists; digital procurement and audit trails; and strict conflict-of-interest rules.
Competent officers should not be transferred merely because they resisted an illegal instruction. Poor performers should not be protected indefinitely by cadre, connection or seniority.
And corruption must be punished irrespective of political party, uniform, civil-service group, business connection or family name.
The Military Should Defend the State, Not Manufacture Politicians
Pakistan’s armed forces are indispensable national institutions.
Precisely because they are indispensable, they should not carry the additional burden of deciding which civilian politician should rise, which party should fragment or which leader is acceptable.
Political leadership must emerge from society.
The military should produce excellent generals. Universities should produce excellent scholars and professionals. The civil service should produce excellent administrators. Political parties should produce excellent political leaders. And voters should decide among them.
That division of responsibilities is not anti-military. It is institutional maturity.
Stop Searching for Saviors
Pakistan has spent too much of its history asking: Who will save us?
A general? A dynasty? A charismatic outsider? A new technocrat? Another supposedly indispensable leader?
Perhaps that is the wrong question.
The better question is: What system will continuously produce thousands of honest, educated and capable people from whom Pakistan can choose its future leaders?
Imran Khan, if he has learned from his experience, could contribute enormously by developing people rather than making PTI permanently dependent upon himself. Other political leaders should face precisely the same challenge.
Pakistan does not need another handpicked savior. It needs a pipeline of leaders: politicians who possess democratic legitimacy but respect knowledge and merit; technocrats who provide expertise without claiming unelected political authority; and civil servants who serve the state rather than personalities.
Above all, Pakistan needs institutions strong enough that the country does not have to start over every ten years.
Stop selecting rulers. Start developing leaders.