On Pakistan’s Election Trail: Photographs by Massimo Berruti

The contest for governance, then, became a battle between two more religiously-inclined heavyweights — former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan. Of the duo, Khan’s story is far more interesting. Not long ago, he was known simply as a handsome star athlete with an alleged “playboy” lifestyle. But his subsequent entrance into Pakistani politics as a pious outsider keen to clean up the corrupt status quo galvanized much of the country’s youth and urban middle class