From Playboy to Radical: Imran Khan Takes on Pakistan's Old Guard
Cricket world champion and former playboy Imran Khan found his way to Islam through a mystic. Now he wants to become Pakistan's prime minister and free his country of corruption and the Americans.
Imran Khan comes out of his room, wearing old athletic shoes, a worn sweater and sweatpants, even though he is about to meet with top officials from his party. "Appearances aren't that important to me," he says. When asked if that applies to politics as well as sports, he replies, "To everything." Imran Khan follows his own rules.
Rule No. 1: You can only lose if you give up.
Rule No. 2: If you don't give up, you're unbeatable.
A professional cricket player for 21 years, Khan was one of the world's most successful athletes. And now, at 60, he is the current star in the campaign for Pakistan's national elections on May 11. According to the polls, he is already more popular than the president and the prime minister combined.
Khan is battling the extremely powerful system of the established parties, and in doing so is upending Pakistani politics. He wants to ensure that large landowners pay taxes in the future, make peace with the Taliban and insurgent Pashtuns and remove the country from the Americans' sphere of influence, a popular position in a nation where anti-Americanism is so pronounced. He also wants Pakistan to reconcile with its neighbor India and with Iran, as a potential future nuclear power. In short, Khan wants to do everything differently than all other Pakistani governments in the 65 years since the country gained independence.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/cricket-star-imran-khan-runs-for-pakistani-national-elections-a-897587.html
