Khan’s last political chance for a late surge in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: It was towards the dying end of his cricketing career that Pakistan’s Imran Khan helped the country win the World Cup in 1992.

He was already 42 when fortune favoured him to snatch what looked an impossible victory in the competition.

His political journey appears to be following a similar arc, with a late surge perhaps about to define his career.

Khan established his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or Pakistan Justice Movement party, in 1996. For the first decade and a half, his party didn’t have much of a role to play in the country’s power politics. All the candidates the party fielded in 1996 lost the parliamentary election.

In 2002, Khan himself was one of the only two members of his party to get elected, one to the national parliament, the other to a provincial legislature.

Six years later, in 2008, he boycotted the polls, arguing that elections under military ruler Pervez Musharraf were illegal, although he supported the coup by the general in the beginning.

To many it seemed that it was not so much the rule of Musharraf, rather than an apparent fear of losing the election, that compelled him to stay away from polls.

Indeed, until recently, Khan’s name was never mentioned in the same breath as discussion about established politicians like former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

But then, a late surge brought him to the forefront of the country’s politics. In a parliamentary election two years ago, his party bagged more than 7 million votes, the most by any opposition group ever in Pakistan.

For critics, Khan is one of those puppet politicians. He led a rally of thousands of supporters to attack the parliament and the national broadcaster in 2014 against then premier Sharif.

His campaign against Sharif continued until the threetime ex premier was ousted by the Supreme Court in July on corruption allegations.

Opponents also attack Khan for what they call contradictions in his personal and political life.

After enjoying a playboy image during his cricketing time, Khan keeps a different identity as a politician, promoting alliances with the country’s right wing and even offering Taliban rebels the chance to open an office in the province his party ruled.

But for his followers, Khan is an undisputed hero, who won the World Cup with sheer determination and his rise isa panacea for all Pakistan’s problems.

The politician looks set for a late surge in his ambitious plan to become Pakistan’s prime minister after the country’s Supreme Court rejected corruption allegations against him on Friday.

How far this late surge takes him will only be clear after next year’s election. At 67, he is double the age when other politicians became prime ministers. – dpa/ African News Agency (ANA)