Nawaz Sharif
| Photo Credit: PTI

Pakistan’s three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif is all set to retake the helm of the ruling PML-N next month to guide the party amid internal strife, seven years after he relinquished the post after being disqualified by the apex court.

Mr. Sharif, 74, will be elected president of the ruling party on May 11 in a meeting of the party leadership, a senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader told PTI.

In 2017, the Supreme Court of Pakistan disqualified Mr. Sharif as premier and party president for his alleged corruption in cases related to the Panama Papers revelations about his illegal wealth stashed abroad.

He relinquished his position within the party following his disqualification, which also led to his departure from the prime minister’s office.

PML-N Punjab president Rana Sanaullah told a press conference that a decision to make Mr. Sharif the president of the party again was taken at a party meeting on Friday.

“A resolution was passed at the party meeting today to make the elder Sharif PML-N president to undo the injustice meted out to him (Nawaz) in 2017 by the Supreme Court,” Mr. Sanaullah, a former interior minister, said.

The party will request Mr. Sharif on his return from China to accept the president’s office of the party.

“Nawaz Sharif was removed from the party president’s office through a conspiracy. Now Nawaz has been acquitted in all (corruption) cases, he should again take up the party’s reins,” Mr. Sanaullah said and added the party would be re-organised under his (Nawaz’s) leadership.

Mr. Sanaullah’s announcement comes amidst internal tensions within the ruling party in Punjab and at the federal level, The Express Tribune newspaper said.

Several prominent figures within the party, including Mr. Sanaullah, portfolio-less Federal Minister Javed Latif, Senator Javed Abbasi, and former Senator Asif Saeed Kirmani, have publicly criticised the leadership.

Their remarks have ranged from questioning cabinet formations to expressing disillusionment with the party’s alignment with the establishment, straying from its “vote ko izzat do” (respect the vote) slogan.

The airing of these grievances has tarnished the party’s reputation as a proponent of democracy.

Following his return to Pakistan after a four-year self-exile in London in October last year, Mr. Sharif got a clean chit in mega corruption cases allegedly with the blessings of the powerful military establishment.

He was all set to become prime minister for the fourth time but his party failed to get a clear majority in the National Assembly on its own in the February 8 general elections.

Mr. Nawaz then allowed his younger brother and the incumbent party president Shehbaz Sharif – who is considered the favourite of the military establishment – to lead a six-party coalition government at the Centre.

Mahmood Khan Achakzai, center, Pakistan’s newly elected lawmaker from Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party
| Photo Credit: AP

The Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) backed by Imran Khan’s party on Saturday named the Pashtun­khwa Milli Awami Party chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai as their presidential candidate against Asif Ali Zardari, the joint nominee of the PML-N and the PPP.

Mr. Achakzai, 75, was nominated for the post against the Pakistan Peoples Party’s senior leader and former president Asif Ali Zardari, Geo News reported.

Mr. Zardari, 68, is a joint candidate of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and other political parties part of the coalition set to form a government in the Centre.

Mr. Achakzai, the chief of Pashtun­khwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP), won the National Assembly seat from the NA-266 constituency in Balochistan’s Kila Abdullah-cum-Chaman.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder and former prime minister Imran Khan, who is incarcerated in Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail, has urged his party’s lawmakers to vote for the veteran politician, The News International reported.

PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Khan has confirmed the nomination of Mr. Achakzai for the presidential poll.

It should be noted that a PTI delegation, led by party leader Asad Qaiser, met with Mr. Achakzai and Balochistan National Party (Mengal) chief Akhtar Mengal earlier this week to seek their support in raising the voice against “rigging” in the general elections held last month.

During the meeting, Mr. Achakzai extended his party’s support for every political party that works towards the Constitution’s supremacy and empowering the Parliament.

According to a notification issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday, the presidential election is set to take place on March 9.

The nomination papers of Mr. Zardari for the presidential elections will be submitted on Saturday.

Mr. Zardari was announced as the consensus candidate for the country’s top constitutional office after the PML-N and the PPP decided to form the coalition when neither of the two parties managed to secure a clear majority in the February 8 polls.

Mr. Zardari has previously served as the president from September 2008 to 2013.

On September 8, 2023, Dr Arif Alvi became the fourth democratically elected president to complete a five-year term. However, in the absence of the electoral college required to elect the president, he is still in office.

Under the law, the president is elected by members of the National Assembly, Senate and four provincial assemblies.

Senior PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of three-time former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, on February- 26, became the first-ever woman Chief Minister of a province in Pakistan when she was elected to head the Punjab province, describing it as an ‘honour’ for every woman in the country.

Maryam, the 50-year-old senior vice president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, won the chief ministerial elections amidst a walkout by lawmakers of former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party-backed Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).

In her maiden speech at the provincial legislature, Maryam thanked God, her father, Nawaz Sharif, uncle Shehbaz Sharif and the lawmakers who voted for her.

Maryam said that she was happy to sit in the seat where her father used to sit. “My father trained me how to run the office,” Maryam, considered the political heir of Nawaz Sharif, said.

“Today, every woman of the province is proud to see a woman Chief Minister,” she said and hoped that the tradition of female leadership would continue in the future as well.

The PML-N leader said she had seen hard times like imprisonment but was thankful to her opponents for making her strong.

“But I will not seek revenge,” she said, indirectly referring to former Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and former Chief Justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar.

Maryam received 220 votes and won the chief ministerial elections for the politically crucial Punjab province, home to 120 million people. She defeated Rana Aftab of the PTI-backed SIC, who received no votes as his party boycotted the election.

“The votes have been counted according to which Maryam has obtained 220 votes, and SIC candidate Rana Aftab Aftab secured zero votes,” said newly-elected Speaker Malik Ahmad Khan while presiding over the session.

To win the Chief Minister’s election, a candidate needs to win the backing of the majority, which is 187 members in the House that currently has 327 seats, according to Geo News. The newly-elected Chief Minister, Maryam, enjoyed the support of the majority in the House.

The PTI-backed SIC’s 103 members have taken oath from its total 113 lawmakers in the Punjab Assembly. Ms. Maryam was backed by PML-N allies, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q), and the Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party (IPP).

The walkout by at least 103 SIC members— including the PTI-backed independent lawmakers— was staged after the SIC nominee for Chief Minister, Mr. Aftab, was not permitted to speak at the point of order.

“In today’s session, only elections will be held for the Chief Minister. You cannot speak in today’s session,” Speaker Khan told the SIC candidate as he tried to speak up.

The speaker eventually moved forward with the proceedings to elect a new leader of the House after efforts to bring back the boycotting lawmakers went in vain, according to Dawn newspaper.

Before boycotting the session, the opposition chanted slogans of “Queen of Mandate Thieves” as the PTI claimed that Maryam had lost his seat with a margin of over 800 votes in the February 8 polls besides the party’s over 100 Punjab Assembly seats that had been stolen. It decried that the irony is a “defeated” candidate has become Chief Minister.

Taking a swipe at the walkout by the SIC lawmakers, Maryam said, “Today, I am upset that the respectable members of the opposition benches are not present here […] I wish they would be a part of the political and democratic process.” She said that despite several challenges and difficulties, her party members and the PML-N never left the ground empty.

“If the opposition was present today, and if they had protested during my speech, I would have been happy,” she said.

Meanwhile, the PTI nominee for the chief ministerial post, Mr. Aftab, said, “It seems as if dictatorship persists even today,” according to the report.

Speaking to the media in Lahore as the Punjab Assembly voted for the new leader of the House, Mr. Aftab said, “I am a political worker […] the way I had to pass from there [the assembly], this is shameful for me, and it is also a moment of reflection for all politicians.” He added that the PTI wanted justice as per the law and Constitution to take “this manoeuvred democracy forward”.

Maryam paid a visit to her mother’s grave at Jati Umra before going to the Punjab Assembly, where the election for the post of Chief Minister took place.

In a post on X, the PML-N said Maryam also visited the graves of her paternal grandparents.

“For the first time in the history of our nation, a woman will become the CM Punjab. Maryam Nawaz Sharif will be the first woman to take the oath as CM Punjab!” the PML-N said in a post on X earlier in the day.

Senior PML-N leader Rana Sanaullah, while speaking to the media outside the Punjab Assembly, has said that Maryam will carry her father, Nawaz Sharif, and uncle Shehbaz Sharif’s legacy as Punjab Chief Minister, Geo News reported.

Terming the need to address prevailing political instability as the “biggest challenge”, Mr. Sanaullah said that everyone, including the bureaucracy, would cooperate with Maryam during her term as the Chief Minister.

Maryam is considered the political heir of the 74-year-old PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif, who surprisingly nominated his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif, 72, as his party’s prime ministerial candidate.

The PML-N clinched both speaker and deputy speaker offices in the Punjab Assembly.

In a marathon session of the Punjab Assembly on February 24, the lawmakers elected PML-N leader Malik Ahmad Khan as the custodian of the House and Zaheer Iqbal Channar as his deputy.

The PML-N won 137 seats, while independents backed by 71-year-old Khan’s PTI party won 113 in the Punjab Assembly. Separately, 20-odd independents, not PTI-backed, have already joined the PML-N.

The PTI-backed independent candidates have joined the SIC to get reserved seats for women and minorities besides saving their elected members from being forced to change their loyalty by the military establishment.

However, the SIC may not get reserved seats for women and minorities, leaving the PML-N with a simple majority in Punjab.

Islamabad:

Three-time Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif will return home on Saturday after four years of self-imposed exile, primed to make a political comeback ahead of elections. The South Asian nation is facing overlapping security, economic and political crises ahead of polls already pushed back to January 2024, with Sharif’s primary opponent, the fiercely popular Imran Khan, languishing in jail.

“This is a time for hope and celebration. His return bodes well for Pakistan’s economy and its people,” said Khawaja Muhammad Asif, a senior leader of Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party.

Sharif has spent the past several days in Dubai, and will fly from there to the capital Islamabad, then on to Lahore, where his supporters will gather for a welcome home rally, his party has said.

His return has been touted for months by the PML-N, whose leaders hope Sharif’s political clout and “man of the soil” swagger will revive its flagging popularity. 

However, the former leader has a conviction for graft and an unfinished prison sentence hanging over him.

Earlier this week, the Islamabad High Court granted protective bail to Sharif until Tuesday, removing the threat of immediate arrest when he lands back in the country. 

Sharif has been prime minister three times, but was ousted in 2017 and given a lifetime disqualification from politics after being convicted of corruption.

He served less than a year of a seven-year sentence before getting permission to seek medical care in the United Kingdom, ignoring subsequent court orders to return during former prime minister Imran Khan’s government.

His fortunes changed when his brother Shehbaz Sharif came to power last year and his government oversaw changes to the law, including limiting the disqualification of lawmakers from contesting elections to five years.

Sharif’s return has likely been smoothed by a deal between the military establishment and his party to prevent significant legal hurdles, said analyst Zahid Hussain.

“There was some sort of arrangement with the military establishment; without that he wouldn’t have decided to come back,” he told AFP.

Often draped in a red Gucci scarf, Sharif has seen his political fortunes rise and fall on his relationship with Pakistan’s powerful military establishment — the country’s true kingmakers.

Politicians in Pakistan are often tangled in legal proceedings that rights monitors say are orchestrated by the powerful military, which has ruled the country directly for more than half of its history and continues to enjoy immense power.

Fans call him “the Lion of Punjab”, the eastern and most populous province where his support is strongest, and he is known to parade big cats at extravagant political events drumming up support.

But he faces the tough task of winning over an electorate weary of dynastic politics and a young population that has been captured by Khan’s social-media-savvy party. 

“Sharif’s key challenge is first to establish himself and his party as viable options to replace Imran Khan, who is already popular, and secondly to turn around the economy,” said political analyst Ayesha Siddiqa.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Ending his over four years of self-imposed exile in the U.K., former prime minister Nawaz Sharif is likely to return to Pakistan next month, according to a media report on Saturday.

Quoting sources present at a meeting in London where Mr. Sharif, the supreme leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), was speaking to his party workers, the Dawn newspaper reported that he “spoke about his return, but a clear date for travel has not been disclosed.”

Mr. Sharif, 73, has been living in self-imposed exile in London since November 2019. He was convicted in the Al-Azizia Mills and Avenfield corruption cases in 2018. He was serving a seven-year imprisonment at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail in the Al-Azizia Mills case before he was allowed to proceed to London in 2019 on “medical grounds.”

“PML-N workers at the meeting were eager to prepare for their leader’s return and were discussing the logistical details of his comeback. Sharif confirmed his return to Pakistan in October,” the Dawn report said.

The report also said that Nawaz Sharif had told it that “he must return to engage with his vote bank and supporters amid the ongoing economic crisis.”

Earlier, on August 25, Mr. Sharif’s younger brother Shehbaz had announced the former prime minister’s return to Pakistan in September “to face his pending court cases and lend the party’s campaign for the general election.”

Mr. Shehbaz, the President of the PML-N party, has also said that Nawaz will return to Pakistan to lead the country as the prime minister for a record fourth time. Meanwhile, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had declared to conduct a fresh delimitation of constituencies on the basis of the new census, delaying the general elections. The general elections were scheduled to be held within the 90-day constitutional period since the August 9 dissolution of Parliament.