LAHORE: Imran Khan has commonly been very commending about the country’s army and in his latest statement; the cricket star-turned politician expressed no qualms about working with the military.
“I think a democratic government rules from moral authority. And if you don’t have moral authority, then those who have the physical authority assert themselves. In my opinion, it is the Pakistan Army and not an enemy army. I will carry the army with me,” Khan told the New York Times in an interview.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman said he heard all stuff about how the army is influential in Pakistan. According to him, “the army depends on one man. Whoever is the army chief, the army policy goes the way of the army chief,” he said.
He also heaped praise on Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. “It’s the first time that I am seeing an army chief saying time and again that ‘I will ensure free and fair elections,’ which is the one thing that we want. That’s all I want,” he added.
To a question about foreign policy especially in connection to India, he was of the view that the military would have a bigger say in the security policy. “But I don’t blame the army. I blame the most corrupt governments whose main concern has only been making corrupt money and protecting the corrupt money. They could easily have taken a more assertive role in foreign policy.”
Khan gathered a mammoth crowd at his party’s rally on April 29 in Lahore, promising radical change for the poor at a campaign rally that has long been the power base of ousted premier Nawaz Sharif.
“It is time to change our destiny and think big.”
Khan told a boisterous crowd of about 100,000 people that Pakistan was “heading towards destruction” but his plan would help forge a fairer society and steer Pakistan towards a path first envisaged by the nation’s father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
After spending much of his post-cricket political career on the fringes, Khan has in recent years emerged as a key challenger to Sharif, a three-time prime minister who was ousted by the Supreme Court last year but whose party retains power.
