With Nawaz Sharif out, Imran Khan begins to dream big

Islamabad: As Pakistani cricket star-turned-politician Imran Khan prepared for a victory rally to celebrate the success of his campaign to remove Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from office, he said his aim was to take the job himself next year.

Mr Khan wants to ride the momentum of his drive against Mr Sharif to win the 2018 general election, more than 20 years after he entered politics.

“We will contest the elections and I’m confident we will win the elections,” Mr Khan, 64, told Reuters late on Saturday.

He dismissed his own pending Supreme Court case investigating unreported assets as a political vendetta and vowed his future government would focus not on big infrastructure projects but on development for the poor.

Mr Khan spearheaded demands for an investigation on Mr Sharif after the leaking of the Panama Papers, which revealed his family had bought expensive London apartments through offshore companies.

It was Mr Khan’s threat to paralyse the Pakistani capital with street protests last year that led to the court investigation into the PM’s finances.

Analysts are divided, however, on whether Mr Khan’s recent win, combined with charisma and a populist pitch, is enough to defeat the political machine of Mr Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party in elections.

For all the furore over Mr Sharif’s ouster, the immediate balance of political power in Pakistani is unchanged.

The PML-N hold a healthy majority of 188 seats in the 342-member Parliament, and it is expected to swiftly install an interim Prime Minister today and later elect Mr Sharif’s younger brother, Shahbaz, as leader. By contrast, Mr Khan’s party holds just 33 parliamentary seats.

Mr Khan clearly believes the stars are finally aligning for him, 21 years after he founded the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI).

“We’re actually are moving towards a general democracy,” he said, describing the Supreme Court’s ouster of Mr Sharif as a turning point for rule of law.

His political policies lean toward populism, and he dismisses the achievements of Mr Sharif’s government, despite the fastest economic growth in a decade, progress in easing chronic power shortages and championing Chinese investment projected at $58 billion.

Big projects, Mr Khan said, are not what is needed for the poor who make up the overwhelming majority of Pakistan’s 190 million people.

“Their lives are not getting better,” he said. “The lives of the corrupt elite is getting better, the lives of the people is getting worse.” His future government, he says, would be different.

“We would spend more money on human beings, human development and strengthen state institutions,” Mr Khan said, adding, “That’s the most important thing.”

Mr Khan spoke to Reuters on a verandah at his palatial estate overlooking the Bani Gala hills on Islamabad’s outskirts. The approximately 35-acre scenic property is the focus of the current Supreme Court case alleging Mr Khan did not account for the source of the funds used to buy it.

Mr Khan dismissed the case. “I used to play cricket, everyone knows that. From that money, I bought this land. I’ve got all the papers,” he said.