Claiming Political Legitimacy in Pakistan’s Digital Arena: PTI vs. PDM Self Legitimation Strategies on Twitter/X across the 9 May 2023 Critical Juncture

Abstract

During political crises, actors must represent their actions as rightful, necessary, and justified. From April 2022 (VONC) through the 9 May 2023 rupture to February 2024 (General Elections), the Pakistan Tehreek‑e‑Insaf (PTI) and the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) fought a Twitter/X hashtag battle for self-legitimation. However, no significant research has emerged during the past 3 years that exclusively focussed on this digital tug of war through hashtags. Using van Leeuwen’s legitimation framework, we categorised 103 trending Urdu/English hashtags as authorisation, moral evaluation, rationalisation, and mythopoesis through consensus coding approach. We discovered that, prior to 9 May, PTI opted for offensive legitimation through populist discourse, whereas PDM employed defensive legitimation through institutional authority and economic rationale. Post-9 May, PDM enhanced its dependence on institutional authorisation. PTI, on the other hand, deployed victimhood narrative and achieved greater visibility because of its reliance on moral appeals (Moral Evaluation and Mythopoesis). This paper is an attempt to contribute to research on digital political discourse by mapping how legitimation strategies adapt across crisis junctures in a post-truth context.