Last year, Pakistan’s government nearly fell. Denouncing alleged vote rigging in the 2013 general election, opposition leader Imran Khan organized what he called the Azadi March in protest. Supporters of Khan’s nationalist Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the dissolution of the government’s assemblies, and new elections for the sake of a Naya (New) Pakistan.

Beginning in August, there were multi-city marches, mass sit-ins, and attempts to shut down and paralyze cities to force Sharif’s hand. The protests continued for months until, on December 17, Taliban gunmen attacked the Army Public School in Peshawar, killing 145 people, including 132 school children, in one of the country’s deadliest terrorist attacks of all time.

The set of events again signaled the weakness of Pakistan’s democracy, convulsed by military interference, hyper-nationalism, jihadist extremism, a rigid caste system, and the ongoing persecution of religious minorities. Khan’s protest effectively empowered the anti-democratic military establishment, which opposes Sharif’s more independent approach to foreign policy. Sharif’s center-right government — beholden to feudal landlords, US largesse, and the Pakistani military-intelligence elite — rests upon a tottering scaffolding of corruption.