Cricket hero turned politician Imran Khan ramped up the
anti-corruption message at a rally of over 100,000 people in Pakistan on
Sunday, boosting his image as a rising political force.
All roads
in the port city of Karachi near the rally venue were jammed for more
than ten hours, an AFP reporter said, and hundreds of thousands of
people waved party flags when the former Pakistan cricket captain
arrived.
"I promised to all you people that we'll make a new and
respectable Pakistan. Join me to achieve this goal," he told the crowds,
full of people waving the green and red flags of his opposition
Movement for Justice Party.
"I have been an honest cricketer who
never fixed a match. I promise you that I'll never fixed a match either
during my political career," he said, brushing aside speculation his
rise had tacit support from the military establishment.
"Once we
are in power, we'll end corruption in 90 days. My party has zero
tolerance for corruption and corrupt people," he said, calling his
campaign "a good tsunami that will destroy injustice and corruption".
The
59-year-old who guided his country to a World Cup win in 1992, entered
politics after founding his Movement for Justice Party in 1996.
He
has started campaigning against the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party in
government and is also critical of the opposition party Pakistan Muslim
League led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
Khan, who drew
more than 100,000 people to his October 30 rally in Lahore, brimmed with
confidence that he could solve the problems in Pakistan, plagued by
terror attacks, corruption, a weak economy and power and gas outages.
His
party has tapped social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to reach
the all-important 18-30 age group which represents about one-quarter of
Pakistan's population of 174 million -- and more than the usual voting
pool.
Nearly 600,000 people have joined Khan's party in recent months by sending a text on their mobile phone.
"Who
will save Pakistan? Imran Khan Imran Khan," chanted supporters, between
recorded music of popular singers playing intermittently for several
hours.
"We have estimated that more than 100,000 people have been
gathered," Javed Odho, a senior police official at the event told AFP.
Khan,
who cemented his national profile in 1992 when he captained the only
Pakistani cricket team to clinch the World Cup, is pushing an anti-graft
revolution, and some politicians have already defected to join his
camp.
Among them is former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi,
who left the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party led by embattled President
Asif Ali Zardari.
The latest defection came on Saturday, as
prominent politician Javed Hashmi broke with the Pakistan Muslim League
to join Khan, and raised alarm bells in both ruling and opposition
parties.
Khan's supporters said they believed he could turn the country around.
"We
see a ray of hope in him. He seems to me an honest man, which is rarity
in Pakistan. I hope he makes our country respectable in the world,"
19-year-old university student Tashfeen Ash'ar said, her face painted in
party colours.
Khan told the crowd he was forming a team to
formulate policies, notably aimed at alleviating poverty "We want to
break the begging bowl once and for all", he said, and make Pakistan a
"true Islamic welfare state".
He hit out at Pakistan's President
Asif Zardari, claiming his days were numbered and accusing him of
policies that encouraged corruption, and which cost Pakistan three
billion rupees ($34 million) a day.
Political analysts said Khan's
rally was impressive but it could impact politically on Pashtun voters
in Karachi whose more than 2.5 million population migrated from the
northwest for better job prospects.
"The majority of people who
participated in the rally were Pashtuns, which shows they can vote for
Imran Khan at the cost of religious and political parties they have been
voting so far," analyst Tauseef Ahmed Khan told AFP.
Karachi,
with a population of 18 million, is gateway to the Arabian Sea and
provides the bulk of the democratically fragile country's income. AFP
