Imran Khan poised to go from sporting great to world leader

Khan is seen as the favourite candidate of the military, judiciary and the chattering classes, and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party is neck and neck with the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) as voters head to ballot stations this morning.
But if he does win, he will have to form a coalition to get a parliamentary majority, and here, his choices are limited. 
The Grand Democratic Alliance in Sindh, the PTI’s ally in the province, was dead in the water when it was launched, overloaded by nationalist leaders way past their sell-by dates.
Despite seen as enjoying the establishment’s patronage, the Islamist MMA has limited support, and is unlikely to get the number of seats required. Ditto the radical Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan. The secular Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) is on the ropes, and will find it hard to win the score or so of seats it once secured through shady electoral means.
That leaves the socialist Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) as Khan’s only possible coalition partner. The conservative Khan has repeatedly dismissed this possibility, but politics makes for strange bedfellows. Our political engineers forced the two parties to propel an unknown Baloch politician to the Senate chairmanship earlier this year, so it should not be that hard to knock heads together again.
For the PPP, this arrangement would be a no-brainer: its shrewd chief Asif Ali Zardari would drive a hard bargain, knowing how badly Khan wants the top job. And apart from a handful of PPP leaders who still have principles, the others would be desperate for the perks and clout that go with ministerial portfolios. And for the graft-tainted Zardari, even a lesser role as junior partner in the ruling coalition could buy him a high degree of immunity from further corruption probes.
And how will former PM Nawaz Sharif’s supporters react to being left out in the cold? Even if he is given bail, his PML-N is not famous for manning the barricades, and nor does it boast martyrs who would fill the jails for their leaders. This is a party of the status quo, and has few foot soldiers to take on the state for a cause. So despite the front-end electoral massaging that has taken place, don’t hold your breath for any long marches.
However, this does not mean that the victim card won’t be played on election day: if enough Nawaz Sharif supporters decide to significantly increase voter turnout in Punjab, they could well derail the establishment’s calculations. The perception that the powers-that-be have ganged up against him could well cause a surprise today, leaving our political engineers with egg on their faces.
But assuming Khan does make it to the PM House, what then? For starters, he will have to address a tottering economy and a rupee in freefall. Thus far, with his populist promises, he has not revealed a mastery of economics. His pledge to create 10 million jobs in the next five years is as implausible as his vow to end corruption.
The reality is that any prime minister will have to take hard decisions to fix our economy that is currently on life support. With a rapidly sinking rupee, our imports will cost more, and the size of our fuel bill will increase at a time when oil prices are rising globally. Nawaz Sharif was fortunate in that during his tenure, world prices per barrel fell to below $30; today, oil is over $70. The fact that Pakistan had to ask China for an emergency loan of a billion dollars to bolster our foreign exchange reserves is a sign of things to come.
Then, of course, there is the small matter of a hyperactive judiciary perceived as encroaching on the executive’s turf. Even if superficially well-intentioned, it restricts the government’s freedom of action.
Imran Khan may also find – as Nawaz Sharif did – that the fawning media that helped him to get where he is might well turn on him, especially if certain quarters feel he’s not cooperating. International diplomacy could also remind the new prime minister that it is not okay to call opponents “donkeys”, as Khan did recently.
Oh, and we forgot to mention problems like illiteracy, a cripplingly high birth rate, jihadist militancy, water and power shortages, and a collapsing state education system. Above all, Khan will find that those who ostensibly made him prime minister will demand their pound of flesh.
Khan, with his single-item anti-corruption agenda, will find that other priorities demand his attention and political capital. This is the conflict between reality and wishful thinking.