KP: From drift to direction |
KHYBER Pakhtunkhwa (KP) is no longer drifting, it is stalling.
What was once sold as Pakistan’s most promising reform experiment now stands exhausted, insecure and economically constrained. The distance between political rhetoric and lived reality has grown too wide to ignore. Lawlessness, chronic power shortages, joblessness and institutional decay have combined into a single unmistakable verdict; KP is facing a crisis of governance, not merely a bad phase.
This is not an impressionistic judgment. It is the cumulative outcome of nearly fifteen uninterrupted years, three consecutive provincial terms, under a single political party. Longevity in power is supposed to produce stability and institutional maturity. In KP, it has produced stagnation. Universities that were meant to anchor human development have slipped steadily in national and regional rankings. Public hospitals remain overwhelmed, under-resourced, and demoralized. Local governments once promised autonomy were delayed, diluted or bypassed. Police reforms that were once showcased internationally now appear frozen, compromised by political interference and chronic shortages. After fifteen years, the most damning question is also the simplest as where is the transformation?
For ordinary citizens, insecurity has quietly become routine. Across KP especially in the southern districts, armed robberies, street crime and sporadic militant incidents have returned to daily conversation. While the province has not relapsed into the catastrophic violence of the past, the erosion of the........