Imran ‘confident’ he will be PM
PTI leader campaigning hard on promise of prosperous, corruption-free nation
■ of not doing enough to root out Taliban militants who shelter on the Pakistani side of the border, and the Trump administration has recently cut foreign aid and applied diplomatic and financial pressure on Islamabad to try to force change.
“I think the longer the US troops stay there, the less the chance of there being a political settlement,” Khan said. “I think the Afghans, you know, if the US even gives a timetable of withdrawal, and then gets the Afghans on the table, and then with the neighbours also chipping in, I think that is the best chance of peace.”
A victory for Khan’s opposition party would mark a new political direction for Pakistan, which has been dominated by two parties — Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Peoples Party founded by assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto — when the military has not been in power.
Stars aligned
More than 20 years after Khan founded his political party, the Pakistan Tehreeke-Insaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice), the man feels the stars have finally aligned for him.
He married his spiritual adviser earlier this year and has been making public shows of devotion to Islam.
His speeches have appeals to religious conservatives in the country of 208 million. And he has courted traditional power brokers with large followings in Punjab, the country’s largest province that is key to any general election victory.
Khan’s political fortunes were transformed last July when the Supreme Court disqualified three-time premier Sharif in a case that judges only took up when Khan threatened to paralyse the capital Islamabad with his supporters.