Nawaz set to become PML-N president

The former premier has not held a formal party office in a decade.

ISLAMABAD:

For the first time in almost a decade, former premier Nawaz Sharif is likely to assume a ‘formal office’ in his own faction of the Pakistan Muslim League when the party enters into the last phase of a ‘lingering’ reorganisation next month.

Individuals close to Nawaz said he would be the candidate for the president of the party, a slot his younger brother and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif held till the group was disbanded for elections within, back in 2009.

Nawaz became ‘Quaid’ or patron of his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) when a court disqualified him from holding any public office for 21 years, apparently on former president Pervez Musharraf’s dictates.

This decision was overturned by another court after several years when the former military strongman was rendered powerless by an election victory of hostile parties in the 2008 general polls.

Though Nawaz returned to Pakistan in 2007 ahead of the elections, he neither contested nor opted for a ‘formal’ office in the party. There were speculations that a Musharraf-Sharif deal backed by Saudi royals made it binding on the PML-N chief not to enter into formal politics for 10 years from 2000 onwards, a condition no more valid now.

A close associate said Nawaz would take over the ‘presidency’ from Shahbaz when the PML-N elects its office-bearers for the centre next month. “He will certainly become the party’s president…there is no restriction anymore,” said Senator Pervez Rasheed, referring to the disqualification of Nawaz by the court ahead of the 2002 elections.

Sharif disbanded the party back in 2009 for re-organising itself through elections within. It is now in the process of electing new office-bearers at district, provincial and central level.

The exercise is expected to be competed towards the end of April, Senator Rasheed added.

‘No more intrigues’

Senator Rasheed also rejected what he called rumours that a segment from within the PML-N was pressing Nawaz Sharif not to pursue a formal role in the party’s future administration.

There have been indications in the recent past that ‘those that matter most’ in Pakistan’s beleaguered politics want Shahbaz to become the head of the party and possibly of the next federal government.

Military chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has recently been holding ‘overt and covert’ meetings with Shahbaz.

Some top leaders in the party said a group within was in favour of Nawaz Sharif playing a role Sonia Ghandi had taken up for the Congress party in India to make the PML-N more acceptable for the security establishment.

Nawaz Sharif has a history of troubled relations with the military and the judiciary during his two short stints in powers back in the 90s.

But Rasheed denied that anyone in the PML-N was pushing Sharif to adopt an ‘informal’ role. “We have travelled far ahead of such intrigues,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 7^th, 2011.