Youth vote could propel cricket star in Pakistan
Candidate Khan rides anti-corruption theme
Pakistan’s biggest sports celebrity, cricket star Imran Khan, is riding an anti-corruption theme and a groundswell of support from young people in a strong bid to become the country’s next prime minister this month.
Khan, a former member of the National Assembly, is running in the July 25 election as the lead candidate of the Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, which means “Pakistan Movement for Justice,” and appears to be more popular than his rivals on social media.
Khan is running on a platform that calls for creating more jobs and housing for poor Pakistanis, reducing chronic power outages, improving education and health, and cracking down on government corruption, which is rampant throughout the country.
For Khan’s party to win, it must over- come bias from the country’s mainstream news outlets, which devote most of their positive coverage to the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) – which had been the ruling party for the past five years – or other parties.
The current prime minister, Nasirul Mulk, is a caretaker who has been in office only since June. Pakistani politics have been in disarray since last year, when then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was forced out of office for corruption. This month he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined more than $9 million.
A recent Institute for Public Opinion Research survey of voters in Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province, showed a majority backing the PMLN party. But such surveys in the past proved to be inaccurate and were paid for by political parties to boost support for their candidates.
Pakistani mainstream media openly support different parties and attack those they oppose, such as the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) led by 23-year-old Manzoor Pashtoon from the Mehsud tribal area. Some accuse him without evidence of being an agent of the CIA and the Indian intelligence agency, RAW.
More than 3,000 candidates from 193 parties are contesting 272 seats in the National Assembly. Sixty are reserved for women and 10 for non-Muslim religious minorities. All the parties are appealing to the religious beliefs of this devout Muslim nation of more than 200 million people, promising to faithfully follow strict religious customs.
Khan’s PTI has a greater chance of coming out on top this time because a majority of parties or many of their candidates are joining PTI in a coalition.
More people, particularly young people, are following the campaign through social media than ever before, and Khan is taking advantage of it more than other candidates, promoting his main issues of reform and clean government.
Khan, 65, retired from competition in 1992 after leading Pakistan’s cricket team to its only world championship.
Mansoor Zeb of the Pakistan Institute for Economic Development in the capital, Islamabad, said Khan effectively promoted economic development in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where his governing party also reduced terrorism and expanded women’s rights.
Khan has pledged to support the U.S. in fighting terrorists but opposes U.S.backed operations by the Pakistani military that have killed innocent civilians in its campaign to root out extremists.
Khan said at a news conference Thursday that “we will communicate with the U.S. on good relations, but the way they have treated Pakistan as a doormat is not fair.”