It is more important when hashtags are used than what they say. For example, #StrongmanCDF, #SaluteToCDF, #CDFPeacemaker, #IronManCDF and #ProudOfYouCDF did not pop up in December 2025, when Field Marshal Asim Munir took office as Pakistan’s first Chief of Defence Forces, with a five-year term, control over all three services and lifetime immunity. Instead, they showed up in July and August 2026, which is a different time. When people make a lot of praise, it often means they are feeling good about themselves but also facing some challenges. This group of hashtags seems to be more about defending themselves than celebrating a win.

Three pressures converged on the CDF's domestic standing this summer, and each one exposes a different weakness in the arrangement he presides over.

Rawalakot, not Riyadh
Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir has produced the ugliest images of Munir's tenure. The Joint Awami Action Committee, a grassroots coalition demanding the abolition of the twelve assembly seats reserved for refugees settled in mainland Pakistan, was banned under anti-terrorism law in June. Eleven people were killed at Rawalakot on 7 June. Amnesty International put the toll at at least 40 by 28 July, including 34 protesters; residents and rights groups say it has passed fifty. International media were ordered out of the region. Ten further names were added to the Fourth Schedule in August.
The elections under these circumstances didn’t really solve the problem; they actually made it worse. Polling was spread out over three phases, delayed in seven out of eleven Poonch constituencies and boycotted by both the JAAC and the PTI. Officials reported a turnout of 46-50%, but others suggested the first phase was much lower. Either way, that’s less than the 60% we saw in 2016 and 2021. The PML-N managed to win 24 out of the 38 seats that were declared.
This is the point the hashtags are working hardest to cover. A territory Islamabad holds up as the moral case against India is now the place where its own subjects say they were shot for asking about electricity bills and reserved seats. One protester's line to Al Jazeera does more damage than any Indian broadcast: no government should shoot its own people.

The Ruling Elite is not One

Pakistan's power-broking has never been the army alone. It runs through feudal-electoral families, clerical networks, biradari blocs and party machines, and the CDF's authority depends on that coalition holding. In PoJK it visibly stopped holding.
Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari spent June appealing to protesters to go home, warning that unrest was damaging Pakistan's image while the world watched. By 17 July he was attacking his own side, telling a rally in Dadyal that the government was punishing all Kashmiris rather than the protesters, and by 28 July he was accusing the state of prioritising PML-N's interests over that of Kashmir and demanding a truth and reconciliation commission. His party's secretary general called it an "ultra Form-47 election". A coalition partner in Islamabad, and the governing party in the region, was publicly calling the vote managed.
The older order took casualties too. Sardar Atiq Ahmed Khan of the Muslim Conference lost Bagh-I by more than 21,000 votes, a seat his family had held in every election since 1985, to a candidate of the new Awami Dast-o-Baazo. The JAAC's platform is explicitly an attack on elite governance culture. When a dynastic seat of forty years falls to a movement candidate, the brokerage system itself is being repriced.
Imran's Face is Back on the Front Page
Then, on 18 August, the Supreme Court ordered Imran Khan moved from Adiala to Shifa International within 48 hours, constituted a medical board including his personal physician and his sister, directed weekly family meetings, and set the next hearing for 16 September. Reports before the bench recorded fluctuating blood pressure, palpitations and severe anxiety; his lawyers say he has lost most of the vision in his right eye. Former President Arif Alvi published his own reading of the medical file the day before.
Consider what this does. A judiciary already trimmed by the 27th Amendment, which created a Federal Constitutional Court and reduced the Supreme Court's reach, has nonetheless put the most recognisable opposition figure in the country back into every news cycle, in the register of a sick prisoner rather than a convict. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Chief Minister Sohail Afridi warned of nationwide protests; the PTI says its 27 September march proceeds regardless. Munir has not been named in the order. He does not need to be.
Thinner Than it Looks
Even so, the tags point to a foreign policy history: the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement with Saudi Arabia and Turkey on 7 August, acting as a go-between for Washington and Tehran, holding a seat on the Board of Peace, receiving the King Abdulaziz Medal and having a lunch at the White House. But, most of this seems more about the show than the real deal. The text of the 2025 Saudi agreement was never made public, and Islamabad’s defence experts cautioned against drawing parallels between the Mecca agreement and NATO. Mediation might give you some standing, but it doesn’t really give you any power. The critical-minerals deal with Washington is worth $500 million, which is a small amount when you consider Pakistan’s overall position.
That position is the tell. The UAE called in $3.5 billion in loans in April, a fifth of central bank reserves. Islamabad has since asked Washington for $10 billion in reserve support. Fitch expects debt servicing to consume roughly 40 per cent of revenues to June 2027, and the trade deficit has reached a four-year high of $39.6 billion. A leadership genuinely converting diplomacy into resources would not be passing the hat.
So the applause is being asked to do work the record cannot. Dawn's own investigation found that about 95 per cent of trending political campaigns in Pakistan are boosted artificially by networks of real accounts; the technique is old and factional. What has changed is the asymmetry of risk. Praising the CDF is free, while questioning him can now invoke PECA, an exit control listing or a frozen account.
Personalisation poses a risk. If these signings are attributed solely to one man, and the civilian government acknowledges the CDF’s role in the Mecca pact, that man will be seen as the sole owner of Rawalakot’s dead and Quetta’s bombed trains. Ayub Khan gained foreign standing but lost 1968 at home. Musharraf was crucial in Washington and finished in 2008. Munir’s management of domestic affairs, based on unratified accords, may backfire sooner than expected, and the hashtags will disappear when it does.