BY MICHAEL KUGELMAN
Playing before a crowd of nearly 90,000 people on a pitch inwards Australia, Pakistan’s national cricket squad defeated England to win the sport’s basis cup. For the kickoff fourth dimension inwards its 45-year existence, cricket-mad Islamic Republic of Pakistan was the champion of the world. Back home, euphoric Pakistanis poured out of their homes to celebrate. It was, in the words of cricket author Mohammad Ramis, “the jubilation of their lives.” Pakistan’s squad was led past times 40-year-old squad captain Imran Khan, a star batter too bowler hence inwards the twilight of an illustrious career. Fast-forward to today. Khan, immediately a star politician, is poised to run Pakistan’s side past times side prime number government minister later his Islamic Republic of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) political party triumphed inwards elections final week. Khan has immediately pulled off an exceedingly rare feat: He has achieved the highest possible grade of success equally both an athlete too a politician. Many top (and mediocre) sportspersons receive got gone into politics, but precious few receive got gone on to Pb governments. As the New York Times has noted, the best analogue to Khan is George Weah: a Liberian soccer star inwards the 1990s who was elected president inwards 2017. H5N1 to a greater extent than surprising illustration is Ted Heath, who won the Sydney-Hobart yacht race—thought to live 1 of the most challenging races of its kind—in 1969, only a twelvemonth before becoming the British prime number minister.
But Khan attributes his successful transition to politics to his mightiness to build a build clean suspension amongst his athletic career too to focus exclusively on his political objectives, fifty-fifty patch leveraging his win-at-all-costs mentality from his playing days to motivate himself inwards the political arena. To live sure, Khan’s household scream condition from his cricket days also gave him an initial boost when he was kickoff launching his political career.
And yet, there’s something else that’s unique inwards all this—and also strikingly paradoxical. As an athlete, Khan was universally loved inwards Pakistan. But equally a politician, his combination of deeply held too fiercely defended beliefs, his mercurial nature, his inconsistent too inwards many cases controversial policy positions, too his ain dramatic personal transformation build him a deeply polarizing figure.
Consider, for example, that Khan is extraordinarily dedicated too determined, too stubbornly committed to taking upward singular causes—from combating corruption to opposing U.S. drone strikes. Some years ago, I sat inwards on a coming together amongst Khan. He spent several minutes denouncing drones, until 1 of my colleagues was asked if she had anything to add together to the conversation. My nervous colleague, who had told me before that she’d long had a musical rhythm on Khan, could only blurt out that she couldn’t believe she was inwards the same room amongst him. Khan’s towering frame stiffened. He briefly looked at her amongst roughly mild irritation, frowned, too hence returned to railing against drones.
But fifty-fifty patch Khan fixates laser-like on the issues he values most, he is also remarkably mercurial, too fifty-fifty erratic. He ofttimes gives rambling speeches that receive got unnerved roughly of his supporters, too he engages inwards head-snapping policy flip-flops. He has loudly condemned terrorist attacks on Pakistan’s Shiite Muslim minority, but he also offers full-throated support for Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which are used equally pretexts for attacks on religious minorities. He denounces terrorists inwards the strongest terms, but he also opposestargeting them amongst force—and he has labeled the Taliban insurgency inwards Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan a holy state of war justified past times Islamic law. Khan is sum of praise for Pakistan’s safety institution fifty-fifty patch existence 1 of the few senior politicians inwards Islamic Republic of Pakistan to endorse the demands of an ethnic Pashtun-led displace that directs its ire at the repressive policies of the army.
During his cricket days, Khan was comfortably ensconced inwards the West. He spent ample fourth dimension inwards England, becoming a large component division of its celebrity civilization too developing a reputation equally a frequent partier whose kickoff union was to a celebrity English linguistic communication heiress to a greater extent than than 2 decades younger than him. He has since morphed into a pious too conservative political leader who regularly rails against the West, specially the United States. Khan immediately prefers to maintain his personal life out of the headlines, but his marital province of affairs continues to captivate the Pakistani media. This includes a brief union to journalist Reham Khan inwards 2014, which lasted less than a year, too his 3rd marriage, to Bushra Maneka, described equally his spiritual guide, inwards early on 2018.
Today, Khan has burnished his ain picture equally an incorruptible reformer intent on expunging the rot from a corrupt organization dominated past times political dynasties such equally the Sharif too Bhutto families, which command Pakistan’s 2 longest-lasting political parties. And yet the PTI includes several top leaders who 1 time belonged to those really parties, too it has taken tactics out of their playbooks. This includes recent successful PTI efforts to attract “electables”—influential too moneyed electoral candidates amongst the mightiness to deliver large numbers of votes—to the party’s cause.
In roughly ways, this shouldn’t live a surprise. Khan had a style to undercut his incorruptible picture on the cricket pitch equally well. In his 1994 autobiography, Khan admittedto tampering amongst the cricket ball, picking at the seam too fifty-fifty bringing a bottle cap onto the champaign to surreptitiously scratch it—a serious criminal offence inwards cricket, since it adds an unexpected twistiness to a bowler’s spin. Khan’s defense forcefulness was that everyone was doing it, too that he only did it occasionally. Others, however, weren’t so sure.
Even if Khan isn’t 100 pct clean, his anti-corruption message has resonated amid many, specially young, urban, conservative, middle-class voters inwards Punjab—Pakistan’s most populous province too top electoral prize. His younger fans, roughly of whom weren’t live for his cricket heroics inwards 1992, revere the charismatic Khan too defend him vigorously—and sometimes aggressively—on social media.
But Khan has enough of critics, too, especially Pakistani liberals too members of the country’s to a greater extent than progressive political parties, equally good equally the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), which ran the previous regime too constantly sparred amongst the PTI. Khan’s detractors don’t only dislike him, they despise him amongst a vengeance. For some, he is “Taliban Khan,” a human being amongst a soft spot for militancy. For others, he is “Im the Dim”—a moniker reportedly kickoff coined during his cricket days—a reference to a hopeless naif. He’s also been described equally a demagogue, a charlatan, too a misogynist.
These days, many critics also denounce him equally a military stooge: someone who achieved political success only because the regular army helped elevate him too who is immediately poised to run premier only because the armed forces engineered efforts behind the scenes to bolster the PTI’s electoral prospects.
Predictably, Khan’s election victory agency dissimilar things to dissimilar people. For his staunchest supporters, his triumph offers resounding proof that in that location is a 3rd way inwards Pakistani politics too that leaders amongst no ties to solid unit of measurement dynasties or established parties tin ascent to the top. For his harshest critics, his win represents a still coup for an regular army intent on bringing its preferred candidate to power.
Khan’s many contradictions build him a difficult human being to figure out—and yet we’ll acquire a lot to a greater extent than almost him, too his mightiness to Pb the country, 1 time he takes component division inwards the coming weeks.
He’s already confronting a brewing economical crisis, an aggrieved political opposition still smarting from what it describes equally blatant pre-poll too election-day rigging. too clear too introduce extremist threats that resulted inwards a recent spate of attacks on electoral candidates—including the single deadliest terror strike inwards Islamic Republic of Pakistan since 2014. He also must human face upward the challenge of Pakistan’s growing debt to China, non to advert an Indian challenger nervous almost his nationalistic rhetoric. Above all, Khan volition receive got to reckon amongst an regular army that won’t hesitate to cutting him downward to size if it concludes having him inwards mightiness no longer serves its interests.
Neither Khan nor the PTI has e'er led a national regime before, too he volition live operating inwards 1 of the most polarized political environments inwards Islamic Republic of Pakistan inwards recent memory.
In short, Khan’s honeymoon menses won’t final long, if he fifty-fifty gets 1 at all, too he’ll live set to the evidence correct away.
But hence again, Imran Khan has defied the odds before. Twenty-six years ago, he led a squad hampered past times injury too wretched functioning to the pinnacle of the cricket world. In an inspiring spoken language before the match, according to roughly accounts, he implored his squad to “fight similar cornered tigers.” (Others, curiously, say the spoken language never happened.)
To live sure, Khan faces bigger challenges immediately than he e'er did on the cricket pitch. H5N1 cornered tiger wouldn’t stand upward a chance. Additionally, no elected Pakistani prime number government minister has e'er finished a sum five-year term. Still, Khan is arguably similar no previous Pakistani leader. He is charismatic, relatively clean, too unencumbered past times whatever entanglements inwards dynastic families. He is, if cypher else, a breath of fresh air for a public suffocated past times many years of politics equally usual.
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