On Oct. 30 2011, Imran Khan entered the Pakistani political scene in style. He led a rally of 100,000 people in Lahore at Minar-e-Pakistan, a landmark dedicated to the Lahore Resolution, which was the first official call for a separate homeland by the Muslims of India. The rally was a milestone in the history of Imran Khan's party, Pakistan Tehreen-e-Insaf, which before 2011 was seen as a small, unsuccessful party based around the cult of Khan.

Before the start of his political career, Khan was already one of the most celebrated Pakistanis. He was the captain of the ICC Cricket World Cup winning team in 1992, a sex symbol and a playboy — an all round celebrity. He would go on to marry, and eventually divorce, Jemima Khan, a British journalist and heiress. Their marriage was tumultuous, mostly because Khan’s political opponents would use Jemima Khan’s Jewish heritage to mock Khan.

Today, Khan is protesting in front of the Parliament, claiming he was robbed of an election victory in 2013 and that the Prime Minister must resign. The protest will have been going for amonth this Saturday. Alongside him is a Canadian-Pakistani cleric named Tahir-ul-Qadri whose role in the affair is suspicious at best because of his lack of popular backing prior to the protests.

These statements are not to be taken at face value given Khan's record. He is hardly a team player. For example, during his World Cup acceptance speech in 1992, instead of praising his team and country, he ranted about how he had achieved a personal obsession and he would establish a cancer research hospital in his mother's memory.

I voted for Khan in the 2013 election, but I trust him more as a person than as a politician. He is a right winged conservative in the guise of a centrist. He supports the Taliban, his relationship with the Pakistan Army is questionable and he panders to the masses. But he’s also honest. Very few people can credibly say Khan is corrupt. Many cite how well his cancer research hospital is run. Most forget that a cancer research hospital is not nearly as complex as a country.

Khan’s biggest flaw is that he is either incredibly naïve or incredibly power hungry. Although his claims are probably right and there was wide-scale election rigging in Pakistan, him taking over the Parliament in Islamabad will not help democracy flourish in Pakistan. But given that Pakistan has only had one democratic transfer of power in its history, Khan would do well to use this political leverage and endorse policies that ultimately help Pakistan in the long run. In reality, the resignation of the Prime Minister is only likely if the Army takes over.

Regardless, the current situation a historic one. The ability to criticize a government so openly, to draw out masses that don’t just belong to the working class, to involve women who sing and dance joyously at protests is something that has largely been missing in Pakistani politics. All of this is happening at Khan’s protest due to his popularity. But whether this newfound power translates to something constructive or sets the country down a dark tunnel once more is yet to be seen.