ISAS Insights

Imran Khan a former cricketer who, in 1992 won the cricket World Cup for Pakistan2 has emerged in the last couple of months as a political phenomenon in a highly troubled country. He has thrown an open challenge to the governing Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) founded four and a half decades ago by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, another populist leader who created the same kind of excitement as Khan is doing today. The PPP is currently headed by President Asif Ali Zardari, the most unpopular leader in the country’s history. The Pakistan economy has performed poorly under Zardari, the country’s politics is in disarray, the military leadership is at odds with the civilian government, relations with the United States (US) have reached possibly the breaking point. Islamic extremist groups continue to operate in the country and on the border with Afghanistan. As Bill Keller, former editor of The New York Times wrote for his old paper, ‘if you survey informed Americans, you will hear Pakistan described as duplicitous, paranoid, self-pitying and generally infuriating’. Can Khan halt the country’s descent and prevent it from becoming a failed state? Hundreds of thousands of his well-wishers and supporters – mostly young in a very young population – have certainly pinned their hope on the former cricket star. As Khan reminded his admiring audience in Karachi at a massive rally on 25 December that he may not have been the best cricketer in the world, but he won his country the World Cup; he may not have been the most experienced philanthropist, but he built the country’s best cancer hospital; he may not be a educationist but he has built the only private sector university in rural Pakistan. Would he now succeed in this new enterprise – saving Pakistan from disaster—he asked his Karachi audience? The large crowd came back with a roaring ‘yes’.