© inhua / Global Look PressImran Khan at campaign rally on July 22.
With about half the votes counted from Wednesday's elections, Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) - Justice Movement - has a solid lead, according to the official preliminary results. The elections were marred by a gruesome suicide bombing. Some 371,000 soldiers have been deployed at polling stations across the country, nearly five times as many as during last general election in 2013.
Comment: That was 2 days ago. The latest figures:
With most votes counted, Mr Khan's party is leading with 115 seats in the 272 National Assembly constituencies being contested, far ahead of the PML-N on 64.Khan's rivals have rejected the results and called for a do-over.
In third place with 43 seats is the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of assassinated two-time prime minister Benazir Bhutto. The PPP did not attend the meeting of rival parties on Friday.
A total of 137 seats is required for a majority and while Mr Khan is on course to become prime minister, he will have to form a coalition government.
Khan addressed the nation from his home in Islamabad, vowing to investigate all complaints of rigged polls made by his opponents - the Pakistan Muslim League, a center-right conservative party, sympathetic to the US. Supporters of its de facto leader Sharif, who has bad blood with the military, claimed the army tipped the scales in Khan's favor.
"It is a sheer rigging. The way the people's mandate has blatantly been insulted, it is intolerable," Shehbaz Sharif, PML-N president and brother of Nawaz, claimed as the counting continued.
Having run on an anti-corruption ticket, Khan pledged to "fix" the governing system of Pakistan and make the country what its founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, actually dreamed it would become. The leader of the Pakistan Movement for Justice also stated that he will be "embarrassed" to live in the lavish PM palace when over half of Pakistanis live below the poverty line. Khan promised to turn the palace into an educational or public institution instead.
"I started this struggle 22 years ago and thankfully today I have been given a chance to fulfill what I dreamt for the country," Khan stated. "We will run Pakistan like it's never been run before."
On top of domestic issues, Khan also pledged to address pressing international concerns, declaring that Pakistan and India should resume talks in a bid to resolve the years-long Kashmir crisis.
He also promised to strengthen relations with China, continuing to work on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Aside from economic cooperation, Pakistan has much to learn from Beijing in other fields, Khan insisted, mentioning China's experience in poverty alleviation and curbing corruption.
Back in April, Khan gave an interview to RT's Sophie Shevardnadze, criticizing the US approach on the region, and Afghanistan in particular. Islamabad, formerly a close ally of Washington, has endured "heavy punishment" for participation in the US-led war on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in the neighboring country, for a very little benefit, he said.
"There is a problem, unfortunately, that the American policy of using a one-dimensional military solution to problems in Afghanistan has led not only to the longest war, but it has caused immense problems to Pakistan," Khan told RT at the time.
Comment: Khan has actually led protests against the U.S. war and its drone attacks in Pakistan. In his victory speech, he said Pakistan will make every effort to make peace in Afghanistan - he wants a mutually beneficial, "balanced relationship" with Pakistan. Moon of Alabama shares his assessment: But, predictably, the 'western' press already dislikes Khan. The NYT (among others) calls him "unpredictable" (shades of Trump!). Instead of calling the country Pakistan, NYT called it "nuclear-armed Islamic Republic". He must be a good thing, if that's the way the media presstitutes are reacting.