Pakistan Cricket Star Imran Khan’s Rally Shows His Growing Political Power
Pakistani politician and former cricketer Imran Khan
Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images
Pakistani politician and former cricketer Imran Khan.
Pakistani politician and former cricketer Imran Khan. Photographer: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images
Pakistan cricket legend and
opposition politician Imran Khan drew as many as 150,000 people
to a rally in Karachi, demonstrating his growing appeal amid
anger over power blackouts and a troubled alliance with the U.S.
After 15 years of political irrelevance, Khan’s Pakistan
Tehreek-e-Insaf, or the Movement for Justice Party, is gaining
momentum as the ruling coalition fails to improve a slowing
economy or fight corruption. Khan’s stance that Pakistan should
pull out of a security pact with the U.S. is winning support
amid criticism of army offensives against Taliban militants
since 2007 that have triggered retaliatory bombings.
“Nobody can stop this tsunami,” Khan, 59, told
yesterday’s gathering at the mausoleum of the country’s founder,
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in the port city of Karachi. He vowed to
“end corruption and injustice from our society. All I want is
your support.” Senior Karachi police officer Javed Odho said
100,000 to 150,000 people attended the event.
Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, has been weakened
by a confrontation with the military that has ruled Pakistan for
half its history. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, a member of
Zardari’s party, warned last week of conspiracies to oust his
administration and replace it with a dictatorship. Political
upheaval in Pakistan may complicate U.S. plans to bolster
security in the region as it withdraws troops from neighboring
Afghanistan.
Khan’s party may win 20 to 40 seats in the 342-seat
National Assembly if an election were held in the next year,
Hasan-Askari Rizvi, a political analyst, said. Tehreek’s appeal
may be restricted largely to cities where middle-class disdain
for established groups like Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party
and its chief opponent, Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League,
is at its strongest, Rizvi said.
‘Corrupt, Incapable’
“He is cashing in on this widespread perception that
Pakistan’s main political parties are corrupt and incapable,”
Rizvi said in a telephone interview from Lahore. “He has been
successful in attracting large crowds but has failed to present
a plan of action.”
Since an October rally in Lahore that the government
estimated was attended by 100,000 people, established
politicians have joined Khan’s party. Shah Mahmood Qureshi, a
People’s party dissident and former foreign minister; Makhdoom
Javed Hashmi, one of the most senior politicians in Sharif’s
group; Jahangir Tareen, a minister in the regime of former
military leader Pervez Musharraf; and Masood Sharif Khattak, a
former head of Pakistan’s civilian intelligence bureau, are
among those who have flocked to Khan’s side.
Change of Strategy
“After languishing on the political sidelines, Imran has
changed his strategy,” Muhammad Waseem, a political science
professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, said
by phone. “He’s now accepting people in his party who have been
very much part of the status quo and the corrupt system. But
they are powerful and electable.”
Khan, the captain of Pakistan’s 1992 world champion cricket
team, managed to win just a single seat, his own, in the last
elections his party contested in 2002 as he struggled to
translate his sporting renown into poll success. The recent
successful rallies indicate his message may be attracting urban
voters especially in his base of Punjab. The U.S.-based Pew
Research Center found Khan to be the most popular political
leader in the country in a June poll.
In a country where only about 1 percent of people pay
income tax, Khan has demanded that leading politicians,
including Zardari and Sharif, declare their wealth. He set an
example last month by disclosing at a press conference in
Islamabad his income and the amount of tax he has paid.
‘Strong Character’
“He has a strong character,” said Muhammad Sadiq, who had
attended the rally in Karachi with his two children. “I think
he will be the next prime minister. I hope he will be the next
prime minister.”
Gilani is under pressure from opposition parties to call a
general election before the scheduled date of February 2013 as
growth in the economy stalls and his government fails to resolve
chronic energy shortages that have shut factories and sparked
street protests.
Pakistan cut its economic growth forecast to 3.6 percent
from 4.2 percent for the year through June 2012. Policy makers
plan to boost growth from 2.4 percent in the year ended June 30,
one of Pakistan’s weakest expansions in a decade.
Court Probe
Pakistan’s Supreme Court is investigating claims that
Zardari sought U.S. assistance to help prevent an army coup as
the military stood humiliated by the strike that killed Osama bin Laden in a garrison town north of Islamabad. That account
has renewed tensions with army chiefs, who have backed the court
probe.
“There is no doubt that his agenda is attracting the youth
in big cities as is obvious from the Karachi rally,” said Mehdi
Hasan, dean of media and mass communication at Beaconhouse
National University in Lahore. “But his real challenge will be
to get votes from Pakistan’s rural areas which account for about
65 percent of the electorate. He has not been tested on that
front.”
Khan is a critic of Pakistan’s alliance with the U.S. in
the fight against militants in the northwestern regions of the
country near the Afghan border, a pact that was further strained
by a NATO border raid last month that killed 24 Pakistan
soldiers.
He has led many rallies this year against the U.S.’s covert
drone attacks, which he says kill innocent people and convince
more people to take up arms.
“You can’t win this war even if you fight for another 10
years,” Khan said at a press conference on Dec. 19 in
Islamabad. “Pakistan must get out of this alliance to stop the
radicalization of our society. We must talk to the Taliban.”
Khan’s opponents, including Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim
League, attribute the party’s sudden rise to backing by the
“establishment,” the term they use for the country’s army. To
support their claim, they point to a large number of former
ministers during Musharraf’s eight years of military rule who
have joined Khan’s party.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Haris Anwar in Islamabad at
hanwar2@bloomberg.net;
Khurrum Anis in Karachi at
kkhan14@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Peter Hirschberg at
phirschberg@bloomberg.net
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