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When TIME sat down with Imran Khan last October, the politician turned to cricket categorically baderted that he would only seek power by fair means. After all, he said, he had refused many offers in the past. In 1988, military dictator Zia-ul-Haq offered Khan a role of government. As his compatriot General Pervez Musharif did in the 2000s.
"To come to power, there are much easier ways," said Khan at TIME on the balcony of his home in Islamabad . the roar of cicadas and the roar of wild dogs. "But I came to politics precisely because corruption destroys a country."
So it is unfortunate that Khan's election on July 25 as likely Pakistani prime minister was spoiled by allegations of this, with the powerful Pakistani army – which ruled the Southeast Asian nuclear army nation for more than half of his story – accused of playing infamous kingmaker. Khan claimed victory Thursday with his projected PTI party to win between 105 and 120 of the disputed 272 seats, putting it in the lead, though likely requiring a coalition to reach an absolute majority of 137.
In a TV address, Khan , 65, praised "the cleanest election" in the nation's history of 208 million people. However, six other parties all rejected the result long before the end of the count, citing "serious irregularities" such as the expulsion of their observers. Some in the media have decried a "silent coup" by the generals, while one activist noted that it was "the dirtiest election" of Pakistan.
It's quite a statement. If politics is a dirty game, it's a putrid sewer in Pakistan. Assbadinations are common, including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 and, more recently, senior officials of Khan's PTI. Wednesday's vote was marked by bombings in the troubled city of Quetta that killed more than 30 people. No less than 800,000 police and soldiers were deployed in 85,000 polling stations to oversee what promised to be only the second civilian-civilian handover in the nation's history.
But the alleged interference of the military political machine of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was imprisoned for corruption – threatens to add an asterisk to this claim. Even before polling day, pro-Sharif media and activists complained about the tactics of the establishment. "It's fraud," said Shahbaz Sharif, who headed the outgoing PML-N party on behalf of his brother. "The way the people's mandate has been insulted, it's intolerable."
In every respect, it was a divisive poll. For any chance of victory, Khan was to divide Sharif's support base, whose PML-N held a 13-point lead in May. Sharif was sentenced to 10 years in prison for corruption and was banned from politics after Panama Papers revealed that he had bought sumptuous apartments in London through shell companies. Khan led this charge. But the PML-N remains strong in the Punjab People's Province due to a well-established patronage system and persistent feudal networks.
Supporters of Shahbaz Sharif, younger brother of former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and leader of the Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz (PML -N), at a meeting of campaign before elections in Rawalpindi on July 23, 2018.
Aamir Qureshi-AFP / Getty Images
Khan sought to strip Sharif's supporters by wooing the Islamist right, painting the United States- and the friendly nabob of India as insufficiently pious or patriotic. It also laid the foundation for a possible parliamentary coalition with radical fringe parties to form a government (although ultimately the Islamic right made little progress on polling day.) Sharif continued the counteroffensive, accusing the army to encourage Mumbai 2008 terrorist attack that claimed the lives of 166 people. In an interview with the Pakistani newspaper Dawn he decried the "parallel governments" of the nation.
This is not news for Washington. Pakistan is the cornerstone of the 16-year-old war in Afghanistan, as a key supply route and intelligence partner in the strategic link between Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. India, China and the Arabian Sea. But Pakistan's formidable intelligence services have long been suspected of protecting radical clerics who serve its strategic goals. And not just any radicals: the architect Osama bin Laden of 9/11 was killed in 2011 in his compound less than a kilometer from the elite military academy from Kakul to Abbottabad, considered the western tip of Pakistan where he spent nearly six years. "We think there should be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside Pakistan," US President Barack Obama told CBS News soon afterwards.
Bilateral relations have become more aggressive since the election of US President Donald Trump. who refused $ 2 billion in aid to Pakistan's security, denouncing the $ 33 billion of help that he tweeted in January, had been "stupidly" provided in the past in exchange for " nothing but lies and deception ". [Pakistan9002] ties with China's rival superpower have strengthened. The new $ 62 billion Sino-Pakistan Economic Corridor includes ports, pipelines, railways and power plants winding through the country. Khan was courted by China before; Prior to the 2013 elections, during which he voted in third place, he received a rare invitation to Beijing, even though he had no government position. "We want to learn from China how they took 700 million people out of poverty," said Khan in his victory speech
Read more: Cricket hero Imran Khan led the Pakistan team to victory. As a politician, he leads a populist wave
For Khan, the role of Islamabad in the US-led war was an unprecedented disaster that claimed the lives of 70,000 Pakistanis . more than 100 billion dollars. He has repeatedly advocated greater trade with Afghanistan, the end of a "unilateral" relationship with the United States and negotiations with the Taliban.
"I find it odd that someone relies solely on a one-dimensional military strategy," he told TIME. "The military should be part of a political strategy."
Khan's own policy is hardened while his still handsome face has doubled and leathered. Her splendor may have been spent in charming mannequins under the eyes of the paparazzi of London's sybarite nightclubs, but her recent campaign included an "electoral alliance" with the radical Islamist Maulana Sami ul Haq, nicknamed the "father Taliban ". The PTI official has shared a stage of campaign rally with US-sanctioned terrorist Abdul Rehman Makki, according to local media reports. In November, Khan supported the anti-blasphemy riots that erupted across Pakistan in response to a draft new oath for legislators that omitted mention of the Prophet Muhammad. This month, he launched a vehement defense of Pakistan's draconian blasphemy law
. His biggest dissatisfaction was his unswerving defense of the Pakistani Taliban, including the 2014 mbadacre at a school in the city of Peshawar – 149 dead including 132 schoolchildren a red line even for hardened Islamists. Its detractors spread the sordid nickname, "Taliban Khan."
"Any party that uses violence should not be allowed," Khan said cautiously. "But if you make an extreme party, it's not a bad thing because you always move them to the center and to moderation." It's much better to badimilate people, integrate them, participate in the elections and integrate them into mainstream. "
But Khan's attempts to" moderate "the radicals seem to play with fire.In Khan's eyes, only 5% of the Taliban are true extremists, the overwhelming majority simply reacting to US drone attacks, air strikes, night raids and other collateral damage.Others are just opportunistic thugs who have exploited the anarchy of border regions to earn money fast.
This is a point of view that garners support. "In my village, people who had nothing to do were Taliban," said Aamir Rbadool, 28, a worker from the centers of Orakzai Agency's ppels in the tribal areas administered by Fataï, at the Afghan border. "Seriously, they just grew their hair and beard and went to rich houses and demanded money.They were not Taliban, they were gangsters."
Yet engagement with the leadership of the group legitimate his message: that of stone age misogyny, ignorance and brutal oppression. And Khan's claim that terrorist activity in Pakistan has declined as US operations are completed is specious. In fact, it is only since a full Pakistani military offensive against the FATA controlled by the Taliban in mid-2014 that the security situation has really improved. "And the offensive went against what Immran Khan had been calling for for many years, namely peace talks and not the use of force," says Michael Kugelman. , the senior partner for Southeast Asia at Woodrow Wilson Center
. radical apologist improbable. The only boy of five, he was born on October 5, 1952, to a wealthy Pashtun family in the former colonial capital of Lahore. After school, he studied politics, philosophy and economics at the University of Oxford. It is also in the UK that he plays cricket for Pakistan, 18 years old. He retains his superstar status to make his nation an international force. The team won its only World Cup cricket victory in 1992.
"Sports teach you how to fight, above all, and you learn to take risks," says Khan. "When you win your feet, stay on the ground, but when you lose, you do not lose heart."
Star-turned-politician crusaders Imran Khan, President of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), wait in front of his residence, one day after the general elections in Islamabad, Pakistan, on July 26, 2018
Athit Perawongmetha-Reuters
Khan retired from cricket shortly after this triumph. opened the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital in Lahore in memory of his mother, who succumbed to the disease, remains the largest cancer hospital serving the poor in Pakistan, his quality of care and rudimentary finances silenced skeptics who were laughing at a project likewise i ambitious was not feasible, strengthening Khan's administrative credentials. He founded his political party PTI two years later, although his detractors quickly died in his private life.
Khan's first wife was British journalist and heiress Jemima Khan, née Goldsmith, a close friend of Diana, Princess of Wales. She converted to Islam for their marriage, although the pair divorced in 2004 after nine years of marriage, and the Jewish heritage of her family was the political dynamite in the greatest state Islamic world. (The two sons of the couple live in London with their mother.) Khan's second marriage with British-Pakistani journalist Reham Khan lasted only a few months in 2015. In February, he married Bushra Maneka, who was his "Spiritual Guide"
. Khan guides the nation. He will want to deflect attention from allegations of rigging to resolve governance issues. Some 29.5 percent of Pakistanis wallow below the poverty line, according to its Ministry of Planning and Reform, with literacy rates of only 58 percent. Pakistan's current account gap climbed nearly 50 percent to $ 16 billion, while its trade deficit reached $ 3.7 billion. The country's external debt and commitments stand at 31 percent of GDP in six years. Khan's first job will be to ask the IMF for another bailout – less than two years after the latest $ 6.6 billion.
How is he going to take the government? Khan is no stranger to the transformation: he is the playboy debonair who became devotee; the humanist who stands with the bloodthirsty; the anti-graft activist who will now lead under a cloud. "Pakistan's policies will not be for the few rich, it will be for the poor, for our women, for our minorities, whose rights are not respected," Khan told the nation on Thursday.
Gain weight, and troubles on the streets as possible, Khan could be facing the toughest transformation of all.
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