(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Pakistani opposition 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 Tahir-ul-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 powerful 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 Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party 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 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.
"The sticking point is always going to be Nawaz Sharif. We have no confidence in him."
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.
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.
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