Busy abroad, PM relents on political front

PM to map out strategy over polls, JIT after return from Saudi Arabia

ISLAMABAD: Owing to his hectic official appointments, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has deferred the plan to map out a detailed strategy vis-à-vis the next general election and the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the Panamagate.

These issues will now be finalised after the PM’s Saudi Arabia visit starting from Saturday (today). He would be leaving for Riyadh to participate in the US-Arab Islamic summit being held on Sunday (tomorrow).

Sources in the PML-N told The Express Tribune that finalising the party’s strategy for the general election as well as the Panamagate JIT is high on the premier’s agenda upon his return from Hong Kong, but his commitments related to the upcoming federal budget took precedence over the political issues.



Sharif had left for China on May 12 and returned home late Thursday night.

On Friday, he held meetings mainly related to the federal budget. “Issues related to the general election and the JIT require time. They cannot be discussed in haste,” a close confidante of the PM quoted him as saying before he decided to take up the issues after returning from Saudi Arabia next week.

He said the PML-N leadership wants the JIT to complete its probe and submit the related report to the apex court “as early as possible” since the ruling party is confident that nothing ‘concrete’ against the Sharif family would come out of the inquiry.



The PML-N’s top ranks are of the view that delay in the JIT probe completion would allow the opposition to cash in on the situation which would be detrimental to the ruling party’s vote bank in the coming elections.

“The elections are not very far; and if this issue keeps lingering, the opposition will have an easy opportunity to keep targeting us over offshore companies, concealing of facts and all that. And we don’t want this to happen,” said a top-ranking leader.

One of Sharif’s legal wizards said the prime minister and other members of the Sharif family ‘desperately’ want to get a clean chit from the JIT “in order to get rid of the Panamagate”.



According to a source, the PML-N’s strategy on elections and the JIT are interlinked which is why the premier and his team are closely watching the developments related to the JIT before chalking out the electoral strategy.

“On broader lines, our policy is clear. We would extend all possible support to the JIT to help it complete the probe within the stipulated time period of 60 days as ordered by the apex court. But in case this issue is dragged on, the opposition will get a chance to have a joyride at our expense. Needless to mention that the election campaign of political parties would be in full swing in just a couple of months,” said the source.

Sharif’s upcoming visit to Balochistan to counter negative propaganda against CPEC and review the situation after the Mastung and Gwadar terrorist attacks is also on the cards, according to the source, which informed that the premier would also be visiting Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh to respectively target the PTI and PPP strongholds by arranging public gatherings and announcing development ventures.



Lately, the PML-N leadership had tasked its K-P chapter to target the PTI strongholds by offering development schemes to locals in exchange for loyalties in the general election – a plan that backfired and attracted public outrage.

Resultantly, PML-N provincial President Ameer Muqam and General Secretary Murtaza Javed Abbasi had to either call off or cut short their scheduled visits to different parts of K-P after public boycotted their events, said sources.

“In order to get the situation under control, the prime minister himself has decided to step in,” said a source in PML-N’s KP chapter.

PML-N chairman and Leader of the House in Senate Raja Zafarul Haq said a host of issues would be taken up by the prime minister for consideration after his return from Saudi Arabia.

“Elections are not the only issue. Mian sahib is the prime minister of entire Pakistan and deals with the issue in this capacity,” he told The Express Tribune.

Regarding JIT, he said, “The probe body is functioning. The PM and federal government will give full support to it.”