Imran Khan has said he 'completely' agrees with his former wife Jemima Khan's contention that Pakistan has been plagued by dynastic politics.
ISLAMABAD: Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has said he 'completely' agrees with his former wife Jemima Khan's contention that Pakistan has been plagued by dynastic politics.
"I agree with her completely that democracy was meant to finish dynastic rule, in other words, monarchy. In the subcontinent, we have been plagued by this, that just because someone has a blood relationship, it entitles them to inherit power," he said.
"It is quite against the norms of democracy (which) basically means that the best leader should come up," Khan told interviewer Karan Thapar on "Devil's Advocate" programme.
Jemima, who often writes on Pakistan for British newspapers, had been critical of the Pakistan People's Party's decision to make teenaged Bilawal Bhutto Zardari its chief after his mother Benazir Bhutto's assassination last year.
"Here, if you're related you already have a head start...Widows take over or in this case, a widower or the children of leaders," Khan said.
Yet Khan, who heads the Tehrik-i-Insaf Party, sees hope. "I think we are moving towards an evolution of democracy. As we get more mature, I think this will disappear."
Asked if he accepted Jemima's view on Bhutto being a "Kleptocrat in a Hermes scarf" and that she was an incompetent prime minister who brazenly looted the treasury, Khan said, "That's Jemima's article, she writes regular columns. I think you should interview her for that."
But he admitted that during Bhutto's second term as premier, Pakistan was the second most corrupt country in the world. "So clearly her government was corrupt," he said.
Asked if he thought Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari is a "crooked widower" as Jemima put it, Khan said, "I think you've got to ask Jemima. She has a way with words but there is no doubt that Asif faces corruption charges. There is a case going on in Switzerland where Asif and Benazir were actually convicted and they're appealing.
"So well he's got to fight that case. There are corruption allegations on him."
On what made his divorced wife come back and campaign for his call to boycott the polls, he said, "She came because we were campaigning for a boycott (of the February 18 elections) and there was a worry that I would again be put into jail.
"My two children were here because of their holidays which they were spending with me. We didn't want to be in a position where I went into jail and the children did not have me or their mother."
He defended Jemima's interview with President Pervez Musharraf, in which he purportedly called deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chowdhry the "scum of the earth". Musharraf, subsequently, said he had been misquoted.
Jemima had recorded the interview "on two tape recorders" and "she actually sent (the interview) for a quote check to Musharraf's PR guy", he said.
"Musharraf once denied giving an interview to the Washington Post about an awful thing like Pakistani women getting raped to get a visa to (go to) Canada. So once there was an uproar, Musharraf denied that and the Washington Post put that on their website," Khan said.
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