Imran Khan Standing for Election Again

The sun dips over the crumbling brick wall around the earthern cricket ground at Kamar Mushani, thousands have waited half the day sheltering in the shade.

At last a large mob pours through the narrow gateway on to the dusty pitch, screaming and cheering, and there in their midst is the tall and strikingly handsome figure of Imran Khan, once a cricketing hero, now a political hopeful.

Dressed in a simple white shalwar kameez, he climbs stone steps to address the people of this small town in western Punjab.

Before him are perhaps 7,000 people, chanting, waving the green and red flags of his Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) party. As he speaks they applaud every sentence, roar at every joke and listen in awed silence to his promises of reform.

It is an accomplished performance but a political puzzle. For years the political elite of Islamabad and Lahore have written off Mr Khan's soapbox ambitions as idealistic and hopeless. His critics grinned smugly in 1997 when his young party failed to win a single seat in the general election.

After faring poorly in the local elections last year, he now believes that a yearning for change is sweeping the country and will push his party to the fore in next month's national elections.

His critics say the crowds he draws are attracted by his cricketing prowess and that in small rural towns such as Kamar Mushani there is little else by way of entertainment. This time he hopes to prove them wrong.

"The people who have been ruling us are corrupt and they did nothing for us. Imran is someone we can trust," said Mazhar Abbas, 23, a schoolteacher. "Last time he was here, in 1997, we came just to get a look at him. This time we will vote for him."

Mr Abbas, who earns £17 a month, lives in a town troubled by low literacy and high unemployment. There is one hospital and one doctor. Few houses have clean water and most farmers' fields are as dry as dust, even though the broad Indus, one of the world's greatest rivers, rushes by only a few miles away.

A few powerful landlords live nearby on vast estates, steeped in a wealth almost unimaginable to the people of Kamar Mushani.

Many voters say they are disenchanted with the often corrupt mainstream political leaders and are seek the change Mr Khan represents.

"Mianwali [the district's administrative centre] is giving us amazing support and now this is happening in other areas across the country," said Mr Khan, 49.

"I feel I have a responsibility and credibility in this country. And what better than to use it to change the system we are living under?"

Pakistan's former cricket captain promises police reform and heavy investment in education, and he is quick to ridicule the corrupt elite.

Some of his ideas verge on the radical. He wants all students to spend a year after graduation teaching in the countryside and he wants many in the over-staffed bureaucracy sacked and sent out to teach too.

His thinking is avowedly nationalistic. He believes that Pakistan was wrong last autumn to give logistical support to US troops for the war in Afghanistan. At Kamar Mushani he told the crowd their country had become a "servant of America".

"When you represent your country like I was doing for 21 years you do become very nationalistic," he said later. "It was logical for me to think why our country cannot compete if our cricket team can."

When Mr Khan first entered the political fray in 1996 Nawaz Sharif, who was shortly to be elected prime minister by a landslide, felt he was such a threat that he offered him the number two post in his party and guaranteed him 30 seats in the national parliament. But Mr Khan refused.

After the military coup in October 1999 Mr Khan supported the army chief, General Pervez Musharraf, even through a heavily rigged referendum.

At one point he was dining at home with the general and being tipped as a potential prime minister. Now he has broken with the regime and rails against the corruption of the politicians brought into the pro-military party.

"I regret supporting the referendum. I was made to understand that when he won, the general would begin a clean-up of the corrupt in the system. But really it wasn't the case," he said.

In July the general's powerful principal secretary, Tariq Aziz, tried desperately to convince Mr Khan to join a pro-military alliance of political parties. But their meeting ended in acrimony. "You will never win your seat now," Mr Aziz told him.

Despite his popularity with younger Pakistanis, Mr Khan's party is unlikely to storm the polls. If he is lucky he will win his own seat, but other hope fuls in the party are unlikely to be so successful.

His critics rounded on him for supporting Gen Musharraf for so long, and opponents say he still lacks the background and pragmatism to make his way to the top.

"He has a general attitude of defiance and many people realise this is not going to work," said Khalid Ahmed, a political commentator

Back in Mianwali, the constituency is no level playing field. Mr Khan's main opponent, Obaidullah Khan, is a wealthy landlord who has just emerged from several months in jail for corruption and has switched his allegiance to the main pro-military party, which is getting strong support from the government machine.

The party has also begun a smear campaign against Imran's wife Jemima, the daughter of the late billionaire Sir James Goldsmith.

The years since his defeat at the 1997 polls have been "the toughest of my life", Mr Khan says. He admits it will need a huge turnout in Mianwali for him just to win the seat. But his political ambitions, he insists, are by no means finished.

"I cannot stop now. It's in my blood."

A captain's innings

Born October 5 1952 in Lahore

Made his international Test debut in England in 1971 aged 18, then read philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford

Appointed captain of Pakistan in 1982, he led the team through one of their greatest decades. The peak of his career came in March 1992 when he led them to victory against England in the World Cup at Lord's

Married Jemima Goldsmith, daughter of the late billionaire Sir James Goldsmith, in 1995. They have two sons, Suleiman and Qasim

Set up the Shaukat Khanum Memorial cancer hospital in Lahore in 1996 after his mother died from the disease

Set up the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) political party in 1996. The party failed to win a single seat in the 1997 general elections