On Wednesday, Sohail Afridi, the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, sat at the head of a long table in Peshawar, hands clasped in front of him, and opened the 59th meeting of his cabinet.
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hands → sit → cabinet
He was dressed in black and leaned forward as he spoke.
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he → dress → black
When he reached the sharpest lines of his address, his voice dropped and slowed rather than rose.
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voice → reach → address
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Pakistan → crack → Khan
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family → accuse → release
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sisters → say → march
For the past several days, he told his ministers, “plainclothes thugs” had been targeting his workers, officials and elected representatives from his party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
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thugs → tell → party
Two of Afridi’s provincial ministers were targeted in a single week: One survived an assassination attempt and an abduction attempt.
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One → target → attempt
The other was ambushed near a motorway toll plaza and abducted.
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other → ambush → plaza
“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will be cut off from the rest of Pakistan,” he told his ministers, adding that all routes into the province were being sealed by the federal government.
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routes → cut → government
“The rest of Pakistan will remain open, but no one will be able to enter or leave Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.”
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one → remain → Pakhtunkhwa
“Is an attempt being made to repeat a tragedy like East Pakistan?” he asked – referring to the secession of Pakistan’s eastern wing in 1971 and its independence as Bangladesh – before rejecting any suggestion of separatism: “We were Pakistanis, we are Pakistanis and we shall remain Pakistanis.”
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we → make → separatism
The crackdown came as PTI was preparing for a march on Islamabad, its biggest mobilisation in nearly two years, to demand the release of party founder and former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
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PTI → come → Khan
The ex-premier has been in jail for more than three years but still commands widespread popularity across the country.
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premier → command → country
The march was initially scheduled for Sunday.
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march → schedule → Sunday
But two days before the protest, after the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif arrested Khan’s sisters and tried to block entries to the national capital from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Afridi announced it had been pushed back by a week.
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it → arrest → week
The decision to start the march on this coming Sunday, he said, was not an act of “surrender” but one driven by “political strategy”.
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he → start → strategy
“I said the long march will happen, come what may,” he said.
uncertain
he → say → ?
With Khan behind bars, the 37-year-old Afridi has emerged as the party’s leading mobiliser as it seeks to challenge Sharif’s government, which came to power through controversial elections in 2024, in which the PTI was barred from contesting under its own symbol.
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PTI → emerge → symbol
He is the PTI’s senior-most elected leader and the fulcrum around whom its protests for Khan’s release have revolved: addressing cabinet meetings one day, facing abduction claims of his own another.
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protests → elect → another
When the protest is held, he warned, the crowds “will not be under anyone’s control” and would not return home until their demands are met.
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demands → hold → control
“On October 5,” Afridi said, referring to the date that is also Khan’s birthday, “we will celebrate a day of victory.”
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we → say → victory
The other Afridi
Nearly 10 days earlier, the same man had looked nothing like this.
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man → look → this
He was in Lahore to condole with the family of a PTI worker and to generate support for the upcoming rally.
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He → condole → rally
On September 14 after police arrested party workers, he climbed into a police van and refused to get out until they were freed.
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they → arrest → van
The van initially drove off with him inside before he was dropped off soon after.
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he → drive → him
Sweat-drenched and dishevelled, he was on the roadside, alleging a conspiracy to abduct him and accusing his political rivals of trying to break up the country.
“Their intention is to divide Pakistan,” he said.
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he → drench → Pakistan
“They want to spread division.
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They → want → division
They want Pakistan to break apart.”
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Pakistan → want → ?
Moments later, addressing his own workers, his tone shifted.
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tone → address → workers
“Stay peaceful,” he told them.
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he → stay → them
“They want to provoke you, spread chaos.
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They → want → chaos
You must not do that.
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You → do → that
Punjab’s information minister, Azma Bokhari, released footage she said showed Afridi boarding the police vehicle voluntarily and dismissed his account of an attempted abduction as “total drama”.
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Afridi → release → drama
But it is the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister’s ability to marry those two personas – an executive in the cabinet room and a combative agitator on the streets – that make him a special politician, say analysts.
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analysts → marry → streets
Mehmood Jan Babar, a veteran Peshawar-based political analyst who has watched him closely, says he finds it hard to place Afridi in one register.
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it → base → register
“I see him the way we watch someone who does comedy in films and gets typecast as a comedian.
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who → see → comedian
Then suddenly they are a romantic hero, and other times a martial arts expert,” Babar told Al Jazeera.
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Babar → tell → Jazeera
“He is constantly shifting his persona.”
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He → shift → persona
Afridi is the youngest to hold the post in the province’s history, and the first from its former tribal districts.
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Afridi → hold → districts
…and 113 more, not listed.
The Aporia
