OMAR WARAICH
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—At long last, Imran Khan is the prime number government minister of Pakistan. After winning the highest number of seats inwards parliament inwards this week’s election, the old cricket legend too philanthropist is straight off laid to shape a national authorities too perhaps dominion 2 of Pakistan’s 4 provinces, making him the country’s nigh powerful civilian leader inwards decades. It’s a remarkable reversal of fortunes for Khan, who for decades was mocked past times his opponents equally a naïve, inexperienced celebrity dandy to perpetuate his ain fame. Khan, however, remained determined. “I ever struggle till the concluding ball,” he told me a few years ago.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—At long last, Imran Khan is the prime number government minister of Pakistan. After winning the highest number of seats inwards parliament inwards this week’s election, the old cricket legend too philanthropist is straight off laid to shape a national authorities too perhaps dominion 2 of Pakistan’s 4 provinces, making him the country’s nigh powerful civilian leader inwards decades. It’s a remarkable reversal of fortunes for Khan, who for decades was mocked past times his opponents equally a naïve, inexperienced celebrity dandy to perpetuate his ain fame. Khan, however, remained determined. “I ever struggle till the concluding ball,” he told me a few years ago. Khan won a particular identify inwards Pakistani hearts inwards 1992, when he led the national cricket squad to victory at the World Cup. In a province where passions for cricket tin achieve near-religious fervor, the cricket squad is seen equally a metaphor for the government: amount of rarely realized potential, but thwarted past times wretched leadership too appalling greed. After the World Cup, too Khan’s retirement, in that place were lurid allegations of ball-tampering too match-fixing. The sporting heroes were reduced to the condition of grasping politicians. Khan’s fans wistfully recalled the glory days of Khan’s captaincy; straight off they hope he tin do the same for the country.
Leading a nation, of course, is zilch similar captaining a cricket team. Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a real hard province to run, beset past times numerous internal divisions—some of which could deepen afterward this election. During the effort season, the political party of old Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was disqualified from constituent concluding twelvemonth too is straight off behind bars on corruption charges, said that it had been denied a “level playing field.” Reports proliferated that the country’s powerful military—in its zeal to punish Sharif for defying its authority—had intimidated, harassed, too coerced candidates from his political party into switching sides, stopped them from campaigning freely, too denied them media coverage. “This was non an election, it was a selection,” Mushahid Hussain, a senator from Sharif’s Islamic Republic of Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), said at a press conference. “It was the dirtiest election inwards Pakistan’s history.” Similar claims of rigged elections convey been made past times other political parties, including the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), too observers similar the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
Khan views himself equally a classic populist, a pol who opposes a corrupt, morally inferior flat of elites. His rhetoric is studded amongst wide appeals to religious too nationalist sentiment. Like other populists, Khan has offered implausible promises to sweep away entrenched problems: “I volition cease large corruption inwards ninety days,” he 1 time vowed at a political rally. He succeeded past times running equally the alone plausible option to an inept, venal, distant political elite. His party’s message: You’ve tried the others—why non give him a essay this time? This pitch, whose appeal was 1 time limited to the city classes too elites, has straight off drawn back upward from a remarkably various array of people, from celluloid too popular stars to religious hard-liners, wealthy businessmen to struggling workers, too large landowners to beleaguered farmers. But many doubtfulness whether he tin unite such an unwieldy coalition of supporters spell delivering on his ambitious political agenda, too avoid veering into the outright demagoguery he occasionally indulged inwards on the effort trail.
Khan, unsurprisingly, bristles at claims that he is the military’s preferred choice. His party, however, has done picayune to discourage the impression. Ahead of the elections, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (or “Movement for Justice”) welcomed prominent alums from military machine governments past—people similar Omar Ayub Khan, the grandson of the old military machine ruler General Ayub Khan, too Khusro Bakhtiar, a old government minister nether Pervez Musharraf—who had all of a abrupt discovered Khan’s political virtues. These so-called electables deport clout inwards their ain constituencies but they needed a strong political party to carry their parliamentary ambitions. One old fellow member of Khan’s party, Javed Hashmi, has claimed that the military machine had been applied scientific discipline defections from other parties for years.
In recent years, Khan too the Blue Planet forces convey drawn closer together. They both wanted Sharif out of office. They both encounter the PPP too PML-N equally corrupt dynasties that are belongings the province back. The Blue Planet forces likes Khan’s displays of nationalism. But in that place are cardinal differences, too. In the past, Khan was a vehement critic of the army’s intrusions into politics, its alliance amongst the the States inwards the War on Terror, too the military machine operations that took identify along the border amongst Afghanistan. In a speech communication Thursday, Khan said he wants to convey peace too boost merchandise amongst India, opened upward borders amongst Afghanistan, too savor a “mutually beneficial” human relationship amongst the U.S.—all initiatives that may irk the Pakistani military.
As prime number minister, Khan volition desire to assert himself equally the nigh powerful leader inwards the country. That purpose has traditionally belonged to the Blue Planet forces chief, who, fifty-fifty during times of civilian rule, has been able to practise influence from behind a sparse veil. No longer tempted past times straight military machine coups, they move out the day-to-day running of the province to the civilians spell retaining the levers of ability that affair nigh to them: unusual policy, defence policy too elements of the economy. They won’t live eager to cede those prerogatives to Khan.
Meanwhile, Khan’s critics also fearfulness that he’s on a path to becoming the world’s latest strongman ruler. During the election campaign, Khan issued unedifying attacks on his opponents, claiming they were working at the behest of Pakistan’s enemies. He compared the voters who supported them to donkeys (which led around of his supporters to shell an actual ass to death). He lashed out against the sections of the press he perceives equally hostile to him. He has also been criticized for supporting Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy law, which makes whatever “imputation, insinuation or innuendo” against the Prophet Muhammad punishable past times death. Critics say Khan, who previously called for the police clit live amended to halt its misuse, changed his topographic point inwards an endeavor to woo Pakistan’s right-wing religious community.
But Khan is non the crude, two-dimensional demagogue around convey suggested. When I covered him equally a journalist, I saw him speak out against enforced disappearances, attacks on liberty of aspect too the press, extrajudicial executions, drone strikes that kill innocents, too the persecution of religious minorities. Off the effort trail, Khan too his political party convey vowed to fighting climate change. He led a desperately needed anti-polio drive inwards a province where the illness soundless stalks children. The Taliban convey attacked anti-polio workers, accusing them of trying to sterilize people. Unlike Donald Trump, Khan has been a successful philanthropist, edifice 2 cancer hospitals that process the wretched for complimentary too a academy close his hometown.
In his speech communication on Thursday, Khan pledged non to seek political revenge on his opponents—a reflex mutual amid demagogues. Instead of scapegoating minorities, equally demagogues frequently do, he said he volition protect their rights. He said he wants to unite the province too vowed to strengthen its institutions. He pledged to rid the province of corruption, belongings himself too his cabinet accountable first, to develop the to a greater extent than than 25 meg children out of school, too to construct a futurity for the country’s overwhelmingly immature population.
It’s a massive undertaking, raising expectations that would overwhelm fifty-fifty the nigh capable too efficient administrations. He may non succeed, and, to brand upward for that failure, he may revert to the ways of the strongmen that convey come upward earlier him. The biggest criticism 1 hears of him is that he’s impetuous too erratic. But he has started off on a strikingly positive note, too there’s argue to hope that he sticks amongst it.
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