Imran Khan has promised a “new dawn for his country” after the elections saw bombings, violence and accusations of rigging.
The PTI leader declared victory in a televised speech earlier this afternoon – despite just half of the results having yet been counted.
He said he would feel ashamed to live in a palatial Prime Minister’s house when five per cent of the nation’s population lives under the poverty line.
Khan added he would not spend taxpayers’ money on “pomp and show” but would bring in austerity measures to improve expenditure.
With about half the votes counted, Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), or Pakistan Movement for Justice, was in a commanding lead, the country’s election commission said.
“God has given me a chance to come to power to implement that ideology which I started 22 years ago,” Khan, 65, said in a televised speech from his house this afternoon.
But supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said the vote count was rigged, calling the result an assault on democracy.
Imran Khan was born on October 5, 1952.
He went to the Royal Grammar School, Worcester and graduated with a degree in economics from Keble College, Oxford.
Khan was captain of the Oxford University cricket team in 1974 before taking up the sport professionally.
He was the captain of Pakistan’s cricket squad when it won the world cup in 1992.
He then moved on to politics and founded his party Tehreek-e-Insaf, the Movement for Justice, in 1995.
The main focus of his party is said to be to “bring justice to the people of Pakistan, largely via an independent judiciary”.