Pathan Suitor

ress the rewind button and recall the mesmerising sight of Imran Khan galloping in to hurl his thunderbolts down the 22 yards.

Those who shouldered arms found, to their dismay, the ball rip back to rattle the stumps. Fifteen years after retiring from cricket, King Khan appears to have finally mastered the art of bowling in the political arena: words are his red cherry, his analysis has acquired a vicious in-swing and arrives bang on middle stump, unplayable yorker length, and his candour booms off the pitch, in your face. The unsure bat facing his fiery spell: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

It isn't known whether he is grimacing or shouldering arms every time Imran speaks—in TV studios and at political rallies. But Pakistanis are tuning in and cheering him lustily. Here's the politician who's speaking what's on their mind as well: Musharraf is a dictator, a usurper; protect the judiciary's independence; restore democracy. There are no euphemisms here, no stringing of sentences where the message is tucked between the lines. Unlike, say, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's tightrope act: I'm against dictatorship, I'm in talks with the military regime.

Imran has finally become politically relevant. Says columnist Ayaz Amir, "Imran is leading from the front. He seems to be in the process of becoming a seasoned politician. With his credibility intact, he has ample chance to maintain his popularity graph. He can spring a surprise in the 2007 elections."

Imran was shrewd enough to harness the uproar against Musharraf's suspension of Chief Justice Iftikar Chaudhry, stepping into the political vacuum that existed because of the country's two most prominent leaders, Benazir and Nawaz Sharif, being in exile. Imran has always been popular: he's the man who brought the World Cup home. And he never faded away post-retirement, courtesy his marriage to Jemima Goldsmith, the Sita White controversy, or building the only private cancer hospital here. They heard Imran because they knew him. Now, what particularly endeared him to people was his courage in opposing the gun-toting goons of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and approaching the British government to extradite the party's leader, Altaf Hussain, for standing trial in the killing of 42 people in Karachi on May 12. The MQM retaliated by filing a reference against Imran in the National Assembly, claiming he should be disqualified because he had a child out of wedlock (see box).

But Pakistanis are batting for him. When the Aaj TV channel programme, Bolta Pakistan, fielded questions from viewers on the MQM reference, not a single caller criticised Imran. Even when anchorperson Nusrat Javed requested Imran's critics to phone in. Another example of his new popularity: during daily protests outside the Supreme Court in May, Imran's Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) rallied the most number of people behind its flag. They also caught the popular imagination through innovative protest methods: tying locks to their lips, for instance.

Considering his credibility in a country where every politician is considered incorrigibly corrupt, many feel Imran is just the person who could unite Pakistan's fractious society, who could become the bridge between modernity and Islamic tradition—the two, perhaps contradictory, worldviews he combines in his personality. Can his party shrug off its past debacles (it drew a blank in the 1997 election, won just a seat in 2002—that too, Imran's) and become a genuine factor?

The fiery Pathan is confident about the PTI's future. As he told Outlook, "One of the reasons I was a successful cricketer was because I felt nothing was impossible. Now as a politician, I feel the same way." Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain, who's part of the religious grouping Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), agrees Imran is among those rare politicians who's willing to accept a challenge, and is gradually carving out a space for himself.

Imran hopes to bag at least 50 seats in the 2007 general election if it is free and fair. He explains, "Pakistanis are no longer the naive audiences absorbing everything fed them by the state-controlled Pakistan Television. The private electronic media has educated them, the masses have greater political awareness than before." Imran, too, has become politically astute. Sources close to him say he plans to forge an electoral alliance with Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League and the Qazi-led MMA to give himself an edge.

ormer cricketer and PML-Q member Sarfaraz Nawaz, however, counters those who predict a rosy future for Imran, saying nobody in the PTI other than him is known. He adds, "That's why his party won only one seat in 2002. People know nothing about his party candidates who contest elections." Adds railways minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, "The PTI's worst nightmare is that Imran's current popularity could prove to be a flash in the pan. Ours is a two-party democracy and a third party is not likely to find a place in 2007 elections."

The only way out for Imran, author and analyst Dr H.A. Rizvi says, is to build assiduously upon the stature he has gained through his stance on the judicial crisis and the MQM. For starters, he suggests, Imran should "throw out the 'nobodys' from the party and bring in politicians who could enhance his electoral strength." This is easier said than done because, as Sarfaraz alleges, Imran is a narcissist who won't let anyone in his party become more popular than him; an autocrat who wants everyone to follow his diktat.

Indeed, many senior PTI members resigned to protest Imran's authoritarian conduct, or were sacked because they questioned him. Veteran politician Meraj Mohammad Khan, who has spent a lifetime promoting secular politics, left the PTI because Imran voted for MMA prime ministerial candidate Maulana Fazlur Rehman in 2002. Journalist Naseem Zehra also quit, accusing Imran of bringing into the party the kind of people he had wanted to replace.

Others say Imran is his party's greatest strength as also its biggest weakeness. His past dogs him. PTI members say the Sita White scandal, raked up before the 1997 election, cost them dearly. Who knows what might spring up next. About his past, Imran says, "Although I consider myself a practising Muslim, I can't say that I have become an angel. I still have my weaknesses like any other human being. Religion shows you the direction in life. For me, faith begins with complete liberation. It drives away your fears—of dying, of losing your wealth, even your National Assembly seat." It's this candour that has endeared him to people.

On the cricketing field he led by example, inspired his team through astonishing personal performances. Perhaps he believes he can replicate that in politics, wooing people by his diatribe against Musharraf and spelling out his personal goal. As he told Outlook, "Musharraf keeps saying I was his prime ministerial candidate in 2002 but I had turned him down, as I was too full of myself. He now says that I am a terrorist without a beard. But I believe I would have failed if I had joined his coterie of supporters. I joined politics to give the people of Pakistan an alternative to the feudal system. People here have no drinking water; 70 per cent of the schools are closed in my constituency. But I am more hopeful than ever."

To translate his hopes, and dreams, into reality Imran needs an organisationally sound party to bat well in what is decidedly a political second innings.