Imran Khan: Now comes the hard part

He may be Pakistan’s new PM but Imran Khan’s image is in tatters. The cricket star now has to prove the doubters wrong.

Imran Khan, chief of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, has declared victory in the country's general elections, promising a "new" Pakistan following a vote that was marred by allegations of fraud and militant violence.

After she had applauded her former husband’s election success, even Jemima Goldsmith could not help sounding an apparent note of caution.

“After humiliations, hurdles and sacrifices, my sons’ father is Pakistan’s next PM. The challenge now is to remember why he entered politics in the first place,” she wrote.

Even loyalists will have similar sentiments. Imran Khan’s crusading white knight image has not survived the mudslinging and inevitable compromises during an ugly campaign.

He was reprimanded for dismissing supporters of a rival party as “donkeys” and accused of provoking bloodshed with his defence of Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy laws. His lurch to the right to garner votes from religious extremists has alarmed many who saw his Movement for Justice as a chance for a fairer, prosperous and more tolerant Pakistan.

Khan’s supporters celebrate victory in Karachi.

The cricket star now has a chance to prove the doubters wrong and rebuild bridges burnt during the campaign. His platform of open government and better access to jobs, education and healthcare is popular in a poor country where 64 per cent of the population is under 30.

Fulfilling those promises to the satisfaction of a growing class of young, educated Pakistanis will not be easy. He must tackle an economy that is floundering, with key utilities in crisis. He also inherits a big foreign policy headache, with President Trump heaping pressure on Pakistan to curb its support for militant groups that use havens in the country to strike at India and Afghanistan. A vocal critic of US foreign policy and the war on terrorism, Mr Khan has insisted that the Taliban have a central role in any peace settlement in Afghanistan.

Bringing the Taliban to the table would go a long way to healing the rift with Washington but that is not Mr Khan’s decision to make. Pakistan’s military has its own strategy and will expect the new prime minister not to interfere.

- The Times