The front wall of Lahore's Shaukat Khanum hospital has come to resemble a shrine. Scores of bouquets of flowers are arrayed amid a sprinkling of "get well soon" cards. On the walls, posters appear with messages ranging from the plaintive to the stirring. "When a leader falls," says one, "the nation rises for the leader." The object of this devotion is Imran Khan, Pakistan's World Cup–winning cricket captain turned politician. Just days before the end of campaigning, Khan suffered a dangerous fall from an overloaded lift that tipped over on its way up to a campaign-event stage. His supporters rushed to the charitable cancer hospital he built in memory of his late mother, and where he is now recovering from a bloodied head, a cracked rib and three fractures. Khan's supporters have steadily flocked to the hospital, sometimes staying there for hours in a solidarity vigil. "Imran Khan will bring change," says Mueen Bukhari, an electrical engineer who drove several hours from the southern Punjabi town of Rahimyar Khan. Much like the Obama 2008 presidential campaign, the word change has become the central motif for Khan's attempt to win power in Pakistan at the parliamentary elections on May 11. "I am 100% confident change will come," adds Bukhari. "If the person at the top is sincere, then it improves things at the grassroots." Like many of Khan's supporters, he's wearied by Pakistan's crippling energy shortages, long-souring economy, near daily terrorist attacks and lurid tales of official corruption. (PHOTOS: On Pakistan's Election Trail: Photographs by Massimo Berruti) The lift accident happened toward the end of a grueling and aggressive campaign where Khan was crisscrossing Pakistan, borne by a small helicopter to six or seven events a day, rousing his supporters with denunciations of old politicians. He has cast himself as an outsider sweeping away an oppressive order put in place by grasping, inept and distant politicians. The fact that he has no experience of government, having only won one parliamentary seat in the past, adds to his appeal. "We've endured the two big parties," says Muhammad Shafiq, a government clerk sipping tea at a stall in Lahore's old city. "Let's try him as well." The core of Khan's supporters is drawn from Pakistan's(http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&blog=19871253&post=85895&subd=timeglobalspin&ref=&feed=1)
Via: TIME GlobalSpin