Pakistan's political landscape has long been shaped by personality-driven movements rather than issue-based coalitions — and a report in The Diplomat argues that a four-decade-old ban on student unions is a principal reason why. The analysis, published on 7 August, traces the structural roots of Pakistan's inability to sustain broad-based civic mobilisation, pointing to a 1984 ban imposed by General Zia-ul-Haq that has never been lifted.

The PTI Problem: A Cause Built Around One Man

The report singles out the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) as a case study in the limits of personality politics. Despite mounting large-scale demonstrations — some of which directly challenged the country's powerful military establishment — the PTI has repeatedly fallen short of its stated objectives. The report attributes this failure to the movement's singular focus on former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has been held at Adiala jail since August 2023 and was sentenced on 20 December 2023 to 17 years in prison.

The United Nations' special rapporteur on torture has flagged Khan's solitary confinement — a claim the Pakistani government has denied. Yet even with that international attention, the movement has struggled to broaden its base. As the report notes: 'The economy has collapsed' implicates an entire country and can hold together people who agree on nothing else. 'Free Imran Khan,' in contrast, implicates one half of the country and repels the other.

How the Ban on Student Unions Entrenched Personality Politics

The structural explanation offered by the report is stark. General Zia-ul-Haq's 1984 ban on student unions dismantled the institutional training ground where issue-based political identities are typically forged. A 1993 court ruling subsequently locked the ban in place, reinforced by an affidavit that students — and a parent — must still sign, renouncing political activity as a condition of university admission.

The consequence, the report argues, is that Pakistan's political parties have since functioned primarily as vehicles for individual personalities rather than platforms for shared public grievances. With no independent student unions to incubate civic leadership, the establishment has been able to sustain itself by channelling nearly all political energy through personality contests. The PTI, the report notes, draws almost all the 'political oxygen' in the country, leaving little room for any other issue to breathe.

A Rare System-Level Challenge

The report does identify one exception to this pattern. Hamza Khawaja, a law graduate from Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), has filed a petition before the Supreme Court of Pakistan seeking restoration of student unions and the removal of the political pledge requirement for university admissions. The court has reportedly put the government on notice to respond.

The report describes this as 'the rare Pakistani fight waged over a system rather than in support of an individual saviour' — a distinction it treats as significant precisely because such fights are so uncommon in Pakistan's political culture.

Broader Context: Polarisation Over Grievances

The report also flags that everyday public grievances — exam paper leaks, prolonged power cuts, economic distress — are increasingly subsumed by political polarisation and factional rivalries rather than addressed on their merits. This dynamic, it argues, is not incidental but structural: without issue-based institutions like student unions, even legitimate civic anger gets routed through partisan channels.

Whether the Supreme Court petition by Khawaja succeeds or stalls, the case has reopened a decades-old debate about whether Pakistan can build a politics of systems rather than saviours.