This article is about the politician and former cricketer of Pakistan.
Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi (born 5 October 1952) is a Pakistani politician and former cricketer who served as the 19th prime minister of Pakistan from August 2018 until April 2022. He is the founder and former chairman of the political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from 1996 to 2023. He was the captain of the Pakistan national cricket team throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.
Early Life
Born in Lahore, Khan graduated from Keble College, Oxford. He began his international cricket career in a 1971 Test series against England. Khan played until 1992, served as the team’s captain intermittently between 1982 and 1992, and won the 1992 Cricket World Cup, Pakistan’s only victory in the competition. Considered one of cricket’s greatest all-rounders, Khan was later inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Political Life
After his retirement from cricket, Khan became an outspoken critic of government mismanagement and corruption in Pakistan. He founded his own political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Pakistan Justice Movement; PTI), in 1996. In national elections held the following year, the newly formed party won less than 1 percent of the vote and failed to win any seats in the National Assembly, but it fared slightly better in the 2002 elections, winning a single seat that Khan filled. Khan maintained that vote rigging was to blame for his party’s low vote totals. In October 2007 Khan was among a group of politicians who resigned from the National Assembly, protesting Pres. Pervez Musharraf’s candidacy in the upcoming presidential election. In November Khan was briefly imprisoned during a crackdown against critics of Musharraf, who had declared a state of emergency. The PTI condemned the state of emergency, which ended in mid-December, and boycotted the 2008 national elections to protest Musharraf’s rule.
In spite of the PTI’s struggles in elections, Khan’s populist positions found support, especially among young people. He continued his criticism of corruption and economic inequality in Pakistan and opposed the Pakistani government’s cooperation with the United States in fighting militants near the Afghan border. He also launched broadsides against Pakistan’s political and economic elites, whom he accused of being Westernized and out of touch with Pakistan’s religious and cultural norms.
Khan’s writings included Warrior Race: A Journey Through the Land of the Tribal Pathans (1993) and Pakistan: A Personal History (2011).
Premiership
Elections were held the following year, in July 2018. Khan ran on a platform of fighting corruption and poverty, even as he had to fight off accusations that he was too cozy with the military establishment. The PTI won a plurality of seats in the National Assembly, allowing Khan to seek a coalition with independent members of the parliament. He became prime minister on August 18 and losted his seat on April 2022.
He is the founder and former chairman of the political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from 1996 to 2023.
Life Partner
- In January 2015, it was announced that Khan had married British-Pakistani journalist Reham Khan in a private Nikah ceremony at his residence in Islamabad. Reham Khan later states in her autobiography that they in fact got married in October 2014 but the announcement only came in January the year after. On 22 October 2015, they announced their intention to file for divorce.
- In mid-2016, late 2017 and early 2018, reports emerged that Khan had married his spiritual mentor (murshid), Bushra Bibi. Khan himself, alongside PTI aides, as well as members of the Manika family, denied the rumour. Khan termed the media “unethical” for spreading the rumour, and PTI filed a complaint against the news channels that had aired it. On 7 January 2018, the PTI central secretariat issued a statement that said Khan had proposed to Manika, but she had not yet accepted his proposal. On 18 February 2018, PTI confirmed Khan has married Manika. According to Khan, his life has been influenced by Sufism for three decades, and this is what drew him closer to his wife. The Mufti who conducted the marriage later testified to a court that Khan’s nikah had been conducted twice. The first nikah was conducted on 1 January 2018, while his to-be wife was still in her Iddat, as Khan believed he would become prime minister if he married her on that date.
Net Worth
Former premier Imran Khan’s net worth is estimated to be around Rs315.95 million, according to documents he submitted alongside his nomination papers.
