Who is Imran Khan?
A look at the life and political rise of the international cricket star-turned politician
The outspoken cricketer- turned- politician, Imran Khan, is seeki ng t o become Pakistan's next PM. He has appealed to the masses, especially the younger generation, with his campaign slogan of creating a "new Pakistan" and rooting out corruption. "We will run Pakistan like it's never been run before," said Khan.
"I started this struggle 22 years ago and thankfully today I have been given a chance to fulfil what I dreamt for the country. We are going to uplift Pakistan’s poor and help our country’s labourers. "Corruption has been eating Pakistan like a kind of cancer. We will set an example that the law will be the same for everybody."
Michael Kugelman, a US-based analyst at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, DC, said Khan's rise to power would be in line with global trends, where "maverick, unconventional, and shoot-from-the-hip national leaders" are enjoying a renaissance.
"There would be considerable concerns about a PM Khan, ranging from his complete lack of experience in holding national power to his proud and stubborn personality, which could worry a Pakistani military that prefers that civilian leaders be pliable," Kugelman told Al Jazeera.
We take a look at Khan's early life, political career and policies.
Early life
Khan, 65, was born and raised in an affluent ethnic Pashtun family in Lahore, Punjab. He was schooled at Lahore's elite all-boys Aitchison College before graduating from Oxford University in 1975 with a Bachelor's degree in philosophy, politics and economics.
As the captain of Pakistan's national cricket team, Khan famously led the country to its first and only victory at the 1992
Wo r l d
Cup.
Immediately afterwards, he retired from cricket and devoted most of his time to philanthropy and social work. He launched Pakistan's first specialised cancer centre, Shaukat Khanum, named after his late mother who succumbed to the disease.
In 2008, Khan also established a private technical college in Punjab's rural Mianwali district, called Namal College.
Political career
Disillusioned by the country's bureaucracy and endemic corruption, Khan entered politics in 1996, founding his centrist PTI party with a promise of ensuring "insaf" (justice) for all. As party chairman, Khan won his first seat in the National Assembly in the 2002 general elections, contesting from Mianwali, Punjab. Following a boycott of the 2008 polls as a stance against corruption, Khan stunned the political classes in Islamabad by unexpectedly attracting hundreds of thousands of supporters to public rallies in Lahore and Karachi in late 2011. After a provincial victory at the 2013 general elections, PTI governed the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province for five years.
"Since emerging as a major player in Pakistani politics in 2013, what Pakistan has seen of Imran Khan is a lot of disruptive and agitational politics, a lot of disregard for elected institutions including the parliament to which he was elected but he hardly went there," said Aamer Ahmed Khan, a Karachi-based journalist.
Khan has long been a vocal critic of the now-jailed former PM Nawaz Sharif. He led protests in 2014, demanding that the government, led by Sharif's then-ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz ( PML- N), resign over alleged poll-rigging.
Khan pushed the Supreme Court case instigated by the Panama Papers leak scandal against Sharif, which ultimately led to his disqualification and imprisonment.
Khan's rivals say his rise and the fall of Sharif was engineered by the establishment - a local metaphor used for Pakistan's powerful military. Khan denies the allegations as a "foreign conspiracy".
Policies
Ahead of the elections, under the slogan of "new Pakistan", Khan spearheaded a campaign against corruption with a promise to reform systems of governance in the country.
Khan pledged to create as many as 10 million jobs, in addition to building 5 million low-cost housing units over the next five years, according to his party manifesto.
Internationally, Khan has called for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute with rival and neighbour India within the parameters of the UN Security Council resolutions.
The PTI head has criticised US policy in Afghanistan and called for peace talks to be held with the Taliban, forcing his critics to call him "Taliban Khan" for being too soft on the armed group.
As he gets ready to take on the prime minister role, analysts and critics say the inexperienced public office holder will face significant domestic and foreign policy challenges.
"Internationally, Khan would have to deal with two neighbours - India and Afghanistan - that mistrust Pakistan in a big way and will be watching closely to see how conciliatory a message Pakistan's next leader delivers to them, and how much policy space the military gives that new leader to wage foreign policy," said Kugelman.
(Courtesy Al Jazeera)