Pakistan cricket hero Imran Khan on path to be next PM as military denies meddling
Political ‘turncoats’ boost Imran Khan’s prospects in the Pakistan general election on July 25 as army denies it was rigging the poll
Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar, a Pakistani landowner and politician, recently switched to his third party in a decade.
That is unlikely to prevent him retaining his seat in parliament this month, thanks to loyalty to a family name that has held sway over politics in this part of central Pakistan for generations.
“We’ve lived here for eight centuries,” said Bakhtyar, who will contest the seat under the banner of ex-cricket hero Imran Khan’s opposition party, after abandoning the outgoing ruling party of ousted former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
“If you live in an area for that long, you tend to develop social and political capital,” he said at his marble-floored mansion, nestled among the rolling mango plantations of Mianwali Qureshian, a village in southern Punjab.
Such outsize influence, enjoyed by dozens of aristocratic families in rural parts of Punjab province thanks to centuries of rigid social, tribal or religious tradition, is key to Khan’s strategy for winning Pakistan’s July 25 general election.
Entrenched local power brokers, who include feudal lords, tribal chiefs, clan elders and spiritual leaders and are known in Pakistan as “electables”, hold about a quarter of Punjab’s 141 elected parliamentary seats.
