Imran Khan
prime minister of Pakistan
Imran Khan, in full Imran Ahmad Khan Niazi, (born October 5, 1952, Lahore, Pakistan), a Pakistani cricketer, politician, philanthropist, and prime minister (2018–22). As leader of the Pakistani cricket team in 1992, Khan became a national hero and later entered politics as someone who criticized government corruption.
(born October 5, 1952, Lahore, Pakistan), Imran Khan is a Pakistani cricket player, politician, philanthropist, and former prime minister. In 1992, he led Pakistan's national team to victory in the Cricket World Cup. He then entered politics as a critic of corruption within the government.
Early life and career in cricket
Khan was born into a prominent Pashtun family in Lahore and had his schooling at prestigious schools in both Pakistan and the UK, such as the Royal Grammar School Worcester and Aitchison College Lahore. His family included some renowned cricketers, with two of his elder cousins, Javed Burki and Majid Khan, even captaining the Pakistani national side. In his teens Imran Khan played cricket in both countries, whilst also studying philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford University. He started to play for Pakistan's team in 1971 but it wasn't until after he graduated from Oxford in 1976 that he gained a permanent spot on the squad.
By the early 1980s, Khan had made a name for himself as an exceptional bowler and all-rounder. His athletic skill and attractive appearance earned him celebrity status in Pakistan and England. His presence at popular London clubs was often reported upon by the British tabloids. In 1992, he accomplished his greatest sporting achievement as captain of the Pakistani team's first World Cup victory over England in the final. After this remarkable feat, he retired with a long-lasting legacy of being one of cricket's most excellent players.
In 1992, Khan became a philanthropist and experienced a religious awakening, adopting Sufi mysticism and shedding his earlier image of a playboy. As part of his philanthropic endeavors, Khan raised funds for the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital, a specialized cancer hospital that opened in Lahore in 1994. Khan's mother died of cancer in 1985, prompting the hospital's name.
Entry to the politcs
After he left cricket, Khan became a vocal critic of the government's ineptitude and corruption in Pakistan. Following this, he established his own political party - the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Pakistan Justice Movement; PTI) in 1996. The newly formed party achieved minimal success in the 1997 National Assembly elections, garnering less than 1% of the total votes and failing to gain any parliamentary seats. Two years later however, Khan's organization managed to acquire a single seat which Khan himself filled. He maintained that voting fraud was responsible for PTI's poor performance at the polls. In October 2007, Khan resigned from the National Assembly together with some of his comrades as a means of contesting President Pervez Musharraf's bid in the upcoming presidential election. A month later, while Musharraf had declared a state of emergency, Khan was briefly taken into custody during an effort to stifle criticism towards him. The PTI roundly condemned the state of emergency when it ended in mid-December and refused to participate in the 2008 national elections out of protest against Musharraf's rule.
Though Khan's populist positions found support, especially among young people, despite the PTI's struggles in elections. In addition to criticizing corruption and economic inequality in Pakistan, he opposed Pakistan's cooperation with the United States to combat militants near the Afghan border. As well, he attacked Pakistan's political and economic elites for being Westernized and out of touch with Pakistan's religious and cultural values.
Khan wrote Warrior Race: A Journey Through the Land of the Tribal Pathans (1993) and Pakistan: A Personal History (2011).
Ascent to political power
Before the upcoming legislative elections in early 2013, Khan and his party drew large crowds to rallies and received the support of several veteran politicians from Pakistan's established parties. Khan's rising political fortunes were further demonstrated in 2012 by an opinion poll that found him to be Pakistan's most popular politician.Just days prior to the May 2013 legislative elections, Khan sustained a head and back injury when he fell from a platform at a campaign rally. He had the stamina to appear on television from his hospital bed just hours later to make a final plea to voters. The PTI achieved its most impressive results yet in the elections, although it still won far less seats than the PML-N led by Nawaz Sharif. Khan accused the PML-N of rigging, but with no action taken, he and other opposition leaders took to protesting for four months in late 2014 in an attempt to force Sharif out of office.
Despite the first set of protests failing to have the desired effect, suspicions of corruption were only further bolstered by the Panama Papers which linked Sharif's family to offshore holdings. In response, Khan organized new demonstrations in 2016, however he decided to put an end to them prematurely when the Supreme Court decided to start an inquiry into the matter. Subsequently, in 2017 Sharif was barred from running for political office and was consequently obliged to step down; but Khan's own off-shore dealings were not enough for the Supreme Court to take similar action against him.
The protests were fruitless in removing Sharif from power, yet the Panama Papers revealed his family's offshore holdings, boosting the belief that he was corrupt. Khan then orchestrated a new series of demonstrations late in 2016, but abandoned them abruptly when the Supreme Court agreed to launch an inquiry. This probe resulted in Sharif being barred from public duty and he was obliged to step down. It then came to light that Khan too had connections with foreign assets, though the Supreme Court acquitted him of any wrongdoing.
The premiership
When Khan took office he was greeted by a severe balance-of-payments crisis, caused mainly by expanding imports and debt obligations initiated before his term. This particularly applied to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) initiative. To make matters more dire, only weeks after his governing began the USA withheld already promised $300 million in military aid, criticising Pakistan's lack of commitment to anti-terror activities. Rather than go directly to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which had failed to resolve macroeconomic issues in a dozen past bailouts, Khan sought friendly countries for aid on favourable conditions, to no avail. Thus Pakistan asked for an emergency loan from the IMF, and eventually managed to secure investments from China, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
Khan was instrumental in bringing the Taliban to the discussion table with the United States, which helped improve relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 2019, a suicide mission by Kashmiri fighters left 40 Indian security personnel dead, prompting a retaliatory air assault from India. Pakistan attempted to prevent further escalation of tensions by downplaying the impact and not escalating matters. When India again intruded into Pakistani air space, two fighter jets were shot down and one pilot was taken captive. Khan then saw to it that the pilot was returned safely and initiated a strict crackdown on militants by making arrests, closing educational institutions and looking into existing laws to meet international standards.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in early 2020, aggravated the country’s economic woes. In contrast, the provincial government of Sindh, controlled by an opposition party, was quick to implement a strict lockdown in March, despite the pressure from his critics. In April, Khan imposed a nationwide lockdown; in May, his government began restricting lockdowns to localities with high infection rates.
Political activity following removal from office
Khan had long been condemned for his relationship with the military establishment, his measures against militants, and the instability of the economy. In late 2020, a coalition called the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) was formed by major opposition parties to curtail the influence of the army on civilian governance. Members of PDM held protests and rallies across the country, demanding Khan's resignation, branding him as an army puppet. He ultimately survived a vote of confidence in March 2021 which he won with the help of loyal coalition partners. By April 2022 Khan's attempts to influence high-ranking positions in the military had infuriated it and a considerable portion of his allies turned their back on him after angry protests about inflation caused by his government. On April 10th he became the first ever Pakistani prime minister to be removed from office through a no-confidence measure.
A new government led by Shehbaz Sharif and the PML-N only worsened the economy, paving the way for a remarkable comeback by the PTI months after being ousted. Punjab province, Pakistan's largest province and a traditional stronghold for the PML-N, was won by the PTI by a landslide in July 2022.
Khan's campaign had a period of success, however it was not without its obstacles. In August he incurred charges after making a contentious remark in a speech. This charge would be the first in a series of legal issues to arise in the following months. He then encountered even more difficulty when, in October, the election commission accused him of corrupt practices and barred him from holding public office. Khan's luck hit an all-time low in November when he was shot while leading a protest convoy from Lahore to Islamabad in what seemed to be an assassination attempt.
