US paper supports PTI leader’s campaign to reform Pakistan

new york — A leading American paper on Saturday hailed Imran Khan’s “impressive” election victory and urged the United States, China and India to ease his way towards reforming Pakistan.

“His (Imran Khan’s) main call is to reform Pakistan’s woeful governance and put an end to the patronage networks that have facilitated widespread graft,” the New York

Times said in its main editorial: ‘A

New Batsman for Pakistan’.

It said, “Imran Khan, the cricketer who led Pakistan to a glorious World Cup victory over its former colonial ruler, England, a quarter century ago, led his political party to an equally impressive victory in Pakistan’s elections this week.”

Noting that Pakistan’s woes were many and grave, it said: “The national debt is ballooning, the electricity grid is disintegrating and jobs are so scarce that Pakistani workers are compelled to fan out across the Middle East to take whatever work they can find.

“On top of that, terrorists strike often, relations with the United States are bad and politics are chronically unstable ...”, the editorial added.

Although his PTI party did not win enough seats in parliament to form a government alone, the

Times said, it “still scored big not only in the national parliament but also in regional races across the country, a rare feat in Pakistani politics, giving Mr Khan, 65, considerable leverage to pursue his goals. Those he listed in his victory address were a catalog of what urgently needs to be done.”

In foreign affairs, the paper noted Imran Khan desire to seek to improved relations with the United States, whose policies in the region he has fiercely criticised.

“Mr Khan also pledged to seek an end to the territorial dispute with India over Kashmir, which has long set the neighbours at loggerheads, and to improve relations with China, Pakistan’s major creditor.

“How far Mr Khan can go in changing Pakistan’s political culture, helping the poor and fixing foreign relations will depend on many factors,” including what coalition he cobbles together and how he manages a rapidly swelling debt. —

It would be wise for the Trump administration, as well as for India and China, to do what they can to ease Mr. Khan’s way.

New York Times