Imran Khan: Cricket player burst into populist prime minister

When he was a cricketer and the Pakistani national team was fighting, the fans were singing: "Who can save Pakistan, it's Imran Khan, it's Imran Khan!"

"And singing continues now in its rallies," says Omar Wariach, Pakistani political badyst and former press correspondent

.For his followers, Khan has come full circle, from the man who drove Pakistan won the 1992 Cricket World Cup in Pakistan

On Friday, the Pakistani Election Commission declared that the Khan Party, the Pakistan Movement for Justice, won most of the seats in Pakistan. the National Assembly, paving the way for Khan to become the country's next prime minister.

A sports legend who was also a handsome playboy and a British celebrity – he married one of the world's most Britain's richest – and transformed his public image.He became a philanthropist and took the mantle of public piety while he turned to politics.

Now he takes the leadership of one of the most populous Muslim countries in the world, facing enormous challenges here and elsewhere. Pakistan is a nation with nuclear weapons that has hostile relations with its neighbors, Afghanistan and India. He is in debt, faces rising temperatures and dwindling water supplies. Meanwhile, activists continue to wreak havoc on the periphery of the country

The World of Pakistani Politics

For some badysts, Khan fits a mold similar to other conservative populists who have benefited from new favors in recent years. In the case of Khan, this populism is oriented towards Islamism. He promised to make Pakistan an Islamic welfare state.

"Imran himself says that one of the people he would like to emulate is Recep Tayyip Erdogan," says Wariach, referring to the Turkish president, who has more and more Power. "Even among his supporters, some fear that he will take this comparison a little too far."

Even before the official results were announced, Khan reached out to the Pakistanis, promising to lead the country "as never before" was run. "He vowed to fight corruption and reduce poverty." On foreign policy, he called for peace with India, hailed China, Pakistan's closest ally; America is helping Pakistan fight the US war, "he said in a speech aired Thursday at his home in the suburbs of Islamabad." This is causing a lot of damage to Pakistan " , he said, "We want mutually beneficial relations with the United States."

However, it is unclear to what extent Khan will control policy toward the United States, the United States, and the United States. India and Afghanistan, which have long been part of the army.

Khan's party was found with 116 of the 272 disputed seats in parliament. Despite the magnitude of his victory, his victory was marred by allegations that the army and justice conspired to curb the electoral success of his rival – and to push him to the post of prime minister. Nawaz Sharif, a former Pakistani prime minister and leader of the former ruling party, alleges that many cases of corruption have been committed against him and his family in order to destroy their political future.

These cases stem from the publication of the Panama Papers in 2016, which detailed how Sharif's children were linked to offshore companies that owned high-end apartments in London.

As a result of these revelations, Khan urged the courts to investigate the Sharifs who offered contradictory explanations of how the apartments were paid. The courts will eventually oust Sharif as prime minister in 2017. Sharif was also banned from public office and then, weeks before the elections, sentenced to imprisonment for a matter surrounding the property of the apartments.

In view of the elections Other party leaders of Sharif have been the subject of criminal charges under anti-terrorism laws. A chief was sentenced to life imprisonment in a narcotics case. There was also a crackdown on the media perceived as supporters of Sharif. This prompted a monitoring team from the European Union to declare Friday that the preparations for the Pakistani elections had "reshaped the political environment before the elections".

The State Department stated "to share concerns about the flaws of the election process," which included "the constraints on the freedoms of expression and badociation during the election campaign that were in contradiction with the stated purpose of the Pakistani authorities of a fair and transparent election. "

The army that ruled Pakistan's history, denied any interference, as the do justice.

Khan, too, rejected these allegations, saying that corruption is what drove down his rival. Answering a question from the NPR at a press conference earlier this month, he said, "How would a Western government react?" Would not they put someone behind bars like that? "he said." How can there be sympathy for someone like that? "

For his critics, this meant Khan's accommodation with the army, the Pakistan's most powerful institution – as long as he could win

19659022] Khan comes from a wealthy family that resides in Pakistan's second largest city, Lahore. Studied at Oxford University and spent his years touring Pakistan and the United Kingdom, where he became a sought after celebrity for his cricketing skills, easy charm and beauty. married a wealthy British socialite, Jemima Goldsmith, who converted to Islam and moved to Pakistan with him – they divorced on good terms in 2004 after nine years of marriage.

He began withdrawing from cricket as a hero in the early 1990s center, named after his mother . According to Mosharraf Zaidi, columnist of Islamabad for Pakistan The International News and co-organizer of a podcast on political affairs titled How to Pakistan. 19659025] "I'm part of a generation of Pakistanis who went door-to-door all over the country to raise money for Shaukat Khanum Hospital," Zaidi says.

Khan created "self-awareness and civic sense of duty and responsibility," he says, "It was the first time that a politician had done something like this in Pakistan." [19659024KhanwentintopoliticsataboutthesametimefoundinghisPakistanMovementforJusticepartyin1996HeprotestedagainstthePakistanimilitarydictatorshipofthetime"Heprotestedagainsttherepressionofthepress"saysWariach"Heprotestedagainstenforceddisappearances"HewasalsovehementagainstPakistan'sinvolvementinthewaronterrorandadvocatednegotiationswiththeTaliban

Slowly, he built a sequel while He was attacking the endemic corruption of Pakistan and was badembling "a robust and diverse coalition Zaidi said," But for years, his party had won only one seat – the his. Then, in 2013, the party won about 10% of the national badembly, according to Zaidi. They became the main opposition party, attracting socially conservative urban middle clbad voters.

"We want change and we want it to bring change," says Iftikhar Ahmed, 23, a salesman at a sporting goods store in Islamabad. "We have already tested the others," says Ahmed. "Imran will improve education, it will stop money laundering, it will put an end to corruption, it will bring so many reforms."

No stranger to critics, either.

But for Khan's critics, he is a man desires power, not governance. They cite a detrimental sit-in that paralyzed the Islamabad capital in the fall of 2014 after Khan claimed that his rivals had rigged the elections in their favor. Meanwhile, as a lawmaker, he was one of the most absent legislators in the Pakistani parliament – representing only 4% of every day lawmakers are expected to attend, according to Pakistan's Free and Fair Election Network.

. A disrespectful leader who calls his opponents "donkeys" – leading some to blame his supporters for torturing at least one real donkey in a hate frenzy, according to local media reports.

They criticize his populist promises, which they say are unrealistic and inaccessible. These promises include the swift end of corruption, the promise of building 5 million affordable housing, the creation of 10 million jobs and the revitalization of tourism.

Among some Pakistani feminists, Khan is suspected of saying that Western feminism has degraded motherhood. He was also accused of badual harbadment by a former lawmaker of his party, Ayesha Gulalai, whom Khan did not comment on last year.

His second marriage, with Pakistani journalist Reham Khan, lasted less than a year, ending in 1965, the party of Khan confirmed his third marriage with Bushra Manika earlier this year. He married her secretly. She is called one of her spiritual counselors and she covers her face in public.

Some see Khan with suspicion for what they say is his penchant for activists.

They point out that his government coalition is providing millions of dollars of funds for a seminar held by a man considered the spiritual father of the Taliban. He also openly supports Pakistan's blasphemy laws, which have been used disproportionately to punish minorities. A radical cleric who founded a militant organization close to al-Qaeda also announced that he was joining Khan's party.

Zaidi says that the presumption that Khan has embraced extremists is incorrect.

Khan and his party "are very cynical opportunist politicians, and so their embrace of right wingers has often been based on cynical calculations," he says. "What I find more dangerous," he says, "is the degree of moral agnosticism that he manifests in his dealings."

Wariach offers a different interpretation. Imran Khan is as contradictory as Pakistan itself, he says.

"Imran is not alone in being someone who may seem liberal at one point but who also has conservative opinions – be comfortable in the West and be at the same time". comfortable in a village. That's true for many Pakistanis, "says Wariach – but especially Khan

Abdul Sattar of NPR contributed to this report.

Copyright NPR 2018.