Ex-cricket hero faces love v PM dilemma

PAKISTAN: Imran Khan is fighting to keep his political ambitions on track after asking his spiritual adviser to marry him.

Allies fear the incident could derail the former cricketer’s chances of becoming the prime minister of Pakistan. Critics have cast the latest twist in his colourful life as a characteristic lapse of judgment by a man who has never moved on from his playboy past.

Khan, 65, has accused his rivals of orchestrating a ‘‘gutter media campaign’’ but appears demoralised by the furore. In a message on Twitter, dismissed as evidence of his vanity by opponents, he asked his supporters to ‘‘pray I find personal happiness, which, except for a few years, I have been deprived of’’.

He was responding to claims in a local newspaper that he had married for a third time in secret on New Year’s Day. His bride was identified as his faith healer, Bushra Maneka, 50, who is divorced with five children.

Officials in his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) dismissed the story as ‘‘pathetic’’ but later issued a statement confirming Khan had proposed to Maneka and that she had requested time to consider.

Since he rubbed shoulders with London’s high society in the 1980s and led Pakistan to victory in the 1992 cricket World Cup, Pakistan has been obsessed by Khan’s romances and marriages – first to the heiress Jemima Goldsmith and then the former BBC journalist Reham Khan, 44.

His second marriage in 2015 collapsed after 10 months, with Reham, 44, attacked in Pakistan as an ambitious fame hunter who ‘‘shamed’’ him with her clothes and political views.

Goldsmith said recently that she was often asked by Pakistanis if they were getting back together. ‘‘I could tweet literally anything and still guarantee I’ll get at least five replies, asking, ‘Will you remarry Imran Khan?’.’’

Social media duly lit up with the latest twist. Opponents claim Khan is easily distracted by affairs of the heart, makes poor moral choices and remains in essence the playboy of his youth, a dilettante who is playing at politics. Others have smeared him as a philanderer, pointing to allegations of sexual harassment by a woman in his party last year.

Maneka’s ex-husband leapt to his defence after Khan was accused of breaking up the marriage, claiming he had never known a man so pious.

Pakistan’s election this year was seen as Khan’s best chance at a job he has eyed since the 1990s. Nawaz Sharif was forced to step down as prime minister last year over corruption allegations. He faces a trial and a fight to clear his name. Though barred from office, he is still running the government behind the scenes.