It is a ‘pro-Musharraf observation’: PML-N

Party leaders dismiss suggestions that Nawaz Sharif striking a deal with the chief justice.

LAHORE:

The latest revelations by WikiLeaks about Nawaz Sharif fearing his arrest after he was deported from Pakistan on September 10, 2007, have provoked a response from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders who termed the revelation a ‘pro-Musharraf observation’.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), on the other hand, said it was routine for the Nawaz Sharif-led party to have double standards on important issues.

Reacting to the US diplomatic cable in which Saudi Prince Muqrin told US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Ford M Fraker that Nawaz intended to make Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry president if he helped the PML-N leader return to the country, PML-N leader Zafar Iqbal Jhagra told The Express Tribune that the PML-N chief’s stance on an independent judiciary, whether it was under the Charter of Democracy (CoD) or his march for the restoration of the deposed judiciary, was ‘crystal clear’.

He said Nawaz had never met with the CJ. Jhagra said that when the long march ended in Gujranwala around midnight and the CJ was restored, Nawaz called Jhagra asking him to restrict all party MNAs, MPAs, senators and office bearers from meeting the CJ to congratulate him. He added that no one from the PML-N had met the CJ except MNA Tariq Chaudhry, who went over to the CJ’s house to congratulate him before Nawaz could direct him not to. According to Jhagra, Nawaz prevented them from doing so because he wanted the CJ to be able to work independently.

Jhagra said that under the CoD, Nawaz wanted to establish an independent judiciary but the former PPP leader (the late) Benazir Bhutto was not settled on that idea. Jhagra dismissed the notion that Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanullah Khan’s family relations with the CJ had been exploited by the PML-N to earn them any favours.

He said, “The latest revelations by WikiLeaks is a big drama, considering the timing of the disclosure,” adding, “Such leaks should be dismissed and the nation should not form its opinion based on such false information.”

The Punjab government spokesman Pervez Rashid told The Express Tribune that the CJ had been appointed constitutionally, through four provincial assemblies and the Upper and Lower House. Rashid further said that it was not possible for Nawaz to give the chief justice sureties of the sort [presidency] since he was in exile at the time and his future in politics was largely unclear.

He added that the information was ‘ridiculous’ because it would make no sense for the CJ to negotiate his position with the PML-N chief when clearly the post of a chief justice is much more powerful than that of the president of Pakistan.

In reaction to the information shared by Prince Muqrin with Fraker, Rashid said that it was possibly the prince’s personal observation, which may be pro-Musharraf.

Meanwhile, PML-Q leader Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, while addressing the media in Lahore, said that the WikiLeaks have exposed Nawaz’s double standards on the restoration of the judiciary – which is not really news for the country.





Published in The Express Tribune, May 22^nd, 2011.