The Big Story
Taliban Khan
The Prime Minster of Pakistan by Maarten Hoffmann
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mran Khan, the Oxford-educated former playboy cricketer, is roaring along the Pakistani campaign trail in his armoured car. Horns honk. Crowds yell. Super-fans on motorbikes race after him. Thousands line the road with his flags. Hysteria grips the small Punjabi city of Mandi Bahauddin. Khan, however, is miles away. “British politics,” he intones. “It’s such boring politics. If I had to be in British politics, after two months I would just … commit suicide.” Imran Khan is the former international cricket star who has promised a “new Pakistan” and an end to corruption after claiming victory in the 2018 general election. The charismatic captain who led Pakistan to a World Cup victory in 1992, and played for Sussex from 1983 - 88, has long shed his celebrity playboy image and now styles himself as a pious, populist, anti-poverty reformer.
“His pin-up looks and private life have ensured he’s been a favourite of the world’s media for decades.” Mr Khan, 65, struggled for years to turn popular support into electoral gains. He launched his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in 1996 but he was the only candidate in the party to win a seat in 2002. The PTI boycotted the 2008 vote. Although he has long been one of Pakistan’s best-known faces internationally, he spent years on the political sidelines. That led to teasing - for some Imran Khan became “Imran Khan’t”. It took until the last general election in 2013 for his party to emerge as a serious player, when it narrowly missed becoming the second largest party nationally. But five years on, he has won an election
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