Can Khan beat the odds and build a new future for Pakistan?

The Pakistan election results were supposed to come in early Wednesday afternoon in the US. For the UK or EU countries, it would be a bit later. In the event, it did not matter since Pakistanis around the world were watching and waiting, just like those in the country. Many tuned in to Pakistani television channels analyzing the potential outcome of the election.

In the days and weeks before the election, many overseas Pakistanis traveled to Pakistan to cast their votes. Even for those who could not, the election felt historic. Pakistan has struggled long and hard to establish a democratic process; from campaigning and the tussle of candidates, to voting all over the country, to waiting for the outcome — all felt momentous.

The result took time. Exhausted voters watched the unofficial results, but by midnight only a few constituencies had reported official figures. The Election Commission of Pakistan, which had inaugurated a system that would transmit results, took its time to explain why. It was close to 3 a.m. when the first results were announced. A computer glitch had caused the delay, the election commissioner explained to exhausted journalists; the results would be coming soon. Many Pakistanis had given up and gone to sleep by this time, but those abroad, where the day had not yet ended, were vigilant and still waiting.

Within hours there was a decisive winner. Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), supported by many overseas Pakistanis, began to emerge as leader. Tehreek-e-Insaf has a long history with overseas Pakistanis. In the 22 years Khan has been on the Pakistan political scene, he has visited many Pakistani communities in the US and UK. Many other PTI leaders have also been guests at events and conferences abroad. The PTI platform, centered on the elimination of corruption and loosening the tight hold of feudal families on the political system, appealed to them.

The situation of overseas Pakistanis, particularly those living in Western nations, is a curious one. Living in democracies that hold elections and achieve largely uneventful transfers of power, they cannot but have hoped for a similar system to be established in their own countries. Being migrants, and having to succeed on merit alone, they naturally have an antipathy toward Pakistan’s crony system, where all power is transferred to sons and grandsons. Many even believe that their own decision to leave Pakistan for better economic opportunities is the consequence of the domination of a feudal class that makes social and economic mobility based on merit largely impossible.

Khan, Pakistan’s incoming prime minister, has promised all of these things. The “Naya Pakistan” that has been central to the PTI platform seems focused on creating opportunity and is particularly inclusive of overseas Pakistanis. At the same time, some of the party’s initial promise to bring in a new guard was eroded in the months before the election. In pursuit of “electables,” PTI has included many from feudal backgrounds and even brought in people convicted of corruption offenses. The risk is that these “electables” will erode the party’s commitment to changing the country’s closed power structure.

Other worrying election promises made by Khan include changing the medium of education from English to Urdu. Pakistan exports skilled labor to the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia and Western countries, and attention needs to be paid to whether such a change will affect the ability of Pakistanis to compete for jobs on the global labor market. While changing instruction to Urdu will make a university education more accessible to a greater number of Pakistanis, it is likely to further exacerbate the divide between those who obtain an education via expensive private universities and those who attend government-run universities.

Like Pakistanis at home, those abroad have a lot of hope for the future. The man who led the country to an unlikely victory in cricket’s World Cup in 1992 could do the same for the country as prime minister. If tremendous odds — enormous debt, low female participation in the workforce and inconsistent economic growth — can be overcome, PTI supporters at home and abroad argue, Khan is the man to overcome them.

For a decade and a half, Pakistanis abroad have had to watch the country endure pain and suffering. The scourge of terrorism and the proliferation of extremist groups has brought terrorist attacks and military operations. In the past two years, the number of terror attacks has fallen sharply, which has created more space for civil society and democratic debate.

The challenge of the next few years will be the maintenance of that precious progress, bringing Pakistan back to a situation that is not defined by the war on terror, but by the war on corruption and poverty. It’s a tall order for an underdog party such as the PTI, but, as his supporters like to say, captain Khan has led the country to unlikely victory before.

— Rafia Zakaria is the author of “The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan” (Beacon 2015) and “Veil” (Bloomsbury 2017). She writes regularly for The Guardian, Boston Review, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, and many other publications.

Twitter: @rafiazakaria