Lahore/Islamabad: With tens of thousands of supporters and fireworks lighting up the sky, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan vowed to transform Pakistan at the iconic Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore where the first official demand for an independent Pakistan was signed in 1940.
In a nearly two hours long address on Sunday night, Khan announced an 11-point reforms plan to usher Pakistan in a new era of prosperity after coming into power in the election to be held in July.
“I pledge to work till my last breath and last drop of my blood to make this nation and this country great and prosperous” he told the massive crowd of nearly 100,000. The 65-year-old politician proclaimed to steer Pakistan towards a path first envisaged by the nation’s father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
The rally was attended by senior PTI leaders including Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkha Pervaiz Khattak, Senator Faisal Javed, MNA Shireen Mazari, Sardar Yar Mohammad Rind, Asad Qaiser and Fawad Chaudhry.
Khan, a former cricket star, launched the campaigns for the upcoming general elections in Lahore that has long been the power base of ousted premier Nawaz Sharif and his party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
“Today we are at crossroads,” Khan said.
“It is time to change our destiny and think big.”
Khan said Pakistan was “heading towards destruction” but his plan would help forge a fairer society.
He said if elected he would build schools and “world class hospitals” across the country, while farmers would get cheap loans. He also pledged to build 5 million homes for the poor, which would create jobs and stimulate the economy.
After spending much of his post-cricket political career on the fringes, Khan has in recent years emerged as a key challenger to Sharif, a three-time prime minister who was ousted by the Supreme Court last year but whose party retains power.
Sharif’s legal woes, which the veteran leader says are politically motivated, could further boost Khan in the run up to the elections as an anti-corruption court is due to soon deliver a verdict on another Sharif trial. Khan has predicted Sharif will be jailed before the polls, likely in July.
Khan, who has sought to shed his playboy image of the past, is betting that his anti-corruption message, coupled with anti-America rhetoric and a projecting image of pious devotion, will propel him into power in the deeply conservative Muslim nation of 208 million people.
In Lahore, Khan’s message resonated with many of the bandana-wearing young men waving PTI’s green and red-colour flags.
“Imran Khan has given us the slogan of ‘New Pakistan’ and that’s what we want,” said Shahzad Khan, 17, in reference to the “Naya Pakistan” slogan used by PTI.
Sharif has accused Khan of being a puppet of the powerful military establishment that has a history of meddling in Pakistani politics. Khan denies colluding with the army and the military denies interfering in modern-day politics.
To dislodge Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, Khan’s PTI will have to make inroads into Pakistan’s biggest province, which is home to 110 million people and a well-oiled PML-N electoral machine built over several decades.
Sharif was the chief minister of Punjab in the 1980s and his younger brother Shahbaz has ruled the province since 2008, entrenching PML-N’s support across the wealthiest of Pakistan’s four provinces.
“We feel they are weakening with every day,” Khan told foreign journalist ahead of the rally.
He added that unlike in 2013, when PML-N swept to power, this time around many of the so-called “electables” — politicians who carry large rural vote banks due to their status as tribal elders, feudal lords and heads of various clans — will switch allegiances away from PML-N to PTI.
“The electables ... weigh things up, they want to be on the winning side,” Khan told foreign media.
But at the Lahore rally, Khan shunned talk of electables and focused on promising a new dawn for Pakistan’s poor.
“This system cannot run unless we stand up with the downtrodden,” he said. “I am standing with you, it is time of make new Pakistan.”
— With inputs from Reuters
