ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Imran Khan says he will not be the first to blink in his “battle of nerves” with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif even as crowds dwindle almost a month into his sit-in outside parliament.

It has been 26 days since former cricket hero Khan along with populist cleric Tahirul Qadri and thousands of supporters began protesting in the capital, seeking the resignation of Sharif over what they claim was massive rigging of the 2013 election.

The protest movement has lost momentum since August following clashes with police that left three dead.

Speculation that the army may step in to intervene, as it has in the past, reached fever pitch when protesters stormed state broadcaster PTV.

Since then, opposition parties inside parliament have backed Sharif, lowering political temperatures as negotiations with the protesters were restarted and attention shifted to the devastation wrought by monsoon floods.

Only a few hundred protesters, dressed in the green and red shawls and hats of PTI are now permanently camped at the site while the two sides attempt to negotiate a settlement to the impasse.

By night however, their numbers swell to thousands as men, women and children dance to patriotic songs between the 61-year-old's speeches in an atmosphere similar to a rock concert.

In a interview with AFP from inside a shipping container converted into a makeshift room he vowed to fight on until he toppled parliament — which he called a “coalition of crooks”.

“I've got a feeling it's not that far (to go). I think it's a battle of nerves. It's a matter of who buckles under the pressure first. I've got a feeling we'll win it,” he said, dressed in a white tunic and rain-drenched after a speech.

“The sticking point is always going to be Nawaz Sharif. We have no confidence in him."

Star quality

During his cricketing career, Khan became the best all-rounder in a generation dominated by greats. After leading Pakistan to World Cup victory in 1992 — and acquiring a reputation among the British elite as a playboy — he founded a cancer hospital in memory of his mother.

Political analyst Umair Javed said such victories had helped convince Khan, as well as a wide segment of Pakistan's population, of his infallibility.

"He's been very successful in life and that breeds into it — he's done great charity work and he was a great cricketer. He was everyone childhood's superstar, everyone wanted to be like him growing up."

His supporters see him as a hope for a future free of corruption and misrule in the nuclear-armed but impoverished country of over 180 million.

To his detractors, however, Khan is a sore loser and a willing accomplice of the military establishment, who will stop at nothing until he sees power despite running a distant third in the 2013 election and initially accepting the result.

Khan also came under fire over the storming of PTV by people wearing the colours of his party and Qadri's that raised fears that the protest leaders were attempting to involve the army.

But after initially apologising for the event and saying his party workers had “become emotional”, Khan told AFP the whole affair had been staged by the government to discredit him.

“It was an inside job and there are cameras there that can easily identify the people responsible. We're challenging them to identify those people,” he said.

Inconsistencies

Such about-turns are not new for Khan — who has accused senior judges whom he once supported of helping to rig the elections, and was vocally against an operation against Taliban militants in the northwest before backing it once the army began its action.

And despite Khan's insistence that his supporters are non-violent, he has used heated rhetoric, such as calling for Sharif to be grabbed by the throat and dragged out of his residence.

But his appeal endures thanks to the growing politicisation of the country's urban middle classes, who are repulsed by the traditional dynastic parties led by Sharif and Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, son of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto.

Though local and foreign observers rated the 2013 polls as relatively free and fair, the government's initial reluctance to act on Khan's demands have fuelled suspicion it may have something to hide.

“It's an illegitimate government. What matters to me more than anything else is the sanctity of every single vote,” said Jawad Haroon, a former university professor from Lahore who had come to support Khan's protest.