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| Nawaz Sharif, PML-N leader, speaks to reporters at his Lahore home. He urged Imran Khan to stop making allegations of vote-rigging. Photograph: Damir Sagolj/Reuters |
It is not known when Pakistan's next prime minister last strode on to the lush cricket pitch outside the front door of his luxurious home to wield a bat.
But after an election with no shortage of tired cricket metaphors, Nawaz Sharif could not resist picking a sporting theme to chide his most tenacious political opponent, the captain of the national team that won the World Cup in 1992.
Speaking to journalists on Monday, he said Imran Khan needed to "show the sportsman's spirit" and pipe down about allegations of rigging in last Saturday's election that have enraged Khan's youthful supporters.
The EU election observer mission broadly praised the elections on Monday, but said Taliban violence had "unbalanced the playing field" in some places. Nawaz himself said the election had been "by and large fair".
Many of Khan's supporters were shell-shocked by the failure of their Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) to sweep to power, which instead is projected to win 32 seats when all the votes are tallied, as compared with the 124 won by Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party. That number will allow Sharif to govern without coalition partners.
Large crowds of PTI supporters held demonstrations on the streets of Lahore and Karachi on Monday, demanding re-polling and expressing enormous disappointment at the outcome.
Sharif, meanwhile, makes no attempt to hide his vast wealth, made during a business career that inevitably attracted a slew of corruption allegations, and on Monday he cheerfully opened up his lavish Lahore estate, which resembles an American country club, to a group of foreign journalists.
The acres of immaculate gardens are home to peacocks and lions – ornamental lions – almost everywhere you look. A pair of stuffed big cats, the party's emblem, stand guard at the entrance of a huge reception room, where Sharif answered questions on the long list of challenges awaiting him.
On the subject of Pakistan's relationship with the US and the deeply unpopular air strikes launched by CIA drones in the tribal belt borderingAfghanistan, Sharif said they were "challenging our sovereignty". But he will not be ordering the drones to be shot down, as Khan promised.
Instead, he said: "We will sit with our American friends and we will certainly talk with them on this issue."
He has been accused of turning a blind eye to vicious sectarian extremist groups in his home province of Punjab, which the PML-N has controlled for the last five years.
And he rejected the idea that the left-leaning and secular rivals to PML-N were wiped out because an onslaught of Taliban violence prevented them from voting. They failed, he said, because this was "a performance-related election" and they did not deliver while in office.
Nonetheless, tackling militancy and extremism would be crucial, he said, because it was hurting the economy – the prime concern of the PML-N, a party of businessmen.
He also promised to look into the expulsion from Pakistan on election day of Declan Walsh, the New York Times' Islamabad bureau chief.
Walsh, a former long-serving Guardian correspondent, was thrown out of the country at three days' notice with no explanation beyond a two-sentence letter accusing him of mysterious "undesirable activities".
Sharif is committed to sending the generals back to barracks, despite first entering politics under the tutelage of the former military dictator Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s.
He fell out of love with the military after his last government was abruptly terminated in 1999 by Pervez Musharraf, his army chief at the time, who went on to rule Pakistan for nine years.
Invited on Monday to publicly slap down the military establishment, Sharif played it safe, saying he had "never had a problem with the army" and that the 1999 coup was the work of Musharraf alone.Sharif was far happier answering questions from the large contingent of journalists fromIndia, with which Pakistan has fought three major wars since 1947.
He said he wanted to renew the diplomatic charm offensive he was pursuing before he was deposed and sent into exile by Musharraf.
When asked whether he would invite Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister, to his oath-taking ceremony he said he would be happy to."What is the sentiment in India about the election [in Pakistan]?" he asked one journalist, knowing Indians have been closely monitoring his bold calls for peace between the warring countries.
"People have been extremely welcoming of your victory because they see you as an old friend," the journalist replied. Sharif smiled.
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