Sharif comes out all guns blazing against Imran’s ‘sponsors’

Ex-PM says his party will endorse whatever course of action APC decides

ISLAMABAD:

Convicted former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who was allowed to fly to London for treatment late last year, broke his long silence on Sunday, taking his “vote ko izzat dau” mantra to the next level by declaring that the opposition was up not against Prime Minister Imran Khan but against those who had brought him into power in the 2018 elections.

Participating in the PPP-hosted multiparty conference from London via video link, the PML-N supreme leader pledged that his party would endorse whatever course of action the grand huddle decided.

He urged the APC participants to shift away from traditional politics and hammer out a decisive course of action to bring about a real change.

The Sharif family patriarch, who has recently been declared a proclaimed offender by a court, reiterated his claim that the mandate of the people was stolen in the last general elections.

“The current government, which is relying on crutches, wouldn’t have been formed if the results of the elections weren’t tampered with,” he claimed. “Handing over power to a few people is treachery.”

Sharif said people were robbed of their mandate with impunity without taking into consideration the detrimental effects of such actions on the country. “Pakistan has been turned into a laboratory for these experiments.”

The PML-N supreme leader highlighted how dictators had overthrown civilian governments in the past and also lamented the role of the judges who had endorsed their actions.

“Every dictator ruled for an average of nine years,” he noted, adding that prime ministers had not been allowed to stay in power for more than two years. “Those who abide by the Constitution are dragged to courts and their families are subjected to harassment.”

The former three-time prime minister claimed that even when civilian governments were running the country, their hand were tied. “A former prime minister had once said that there was a state within a state in the country. Unfortunately, this has gone even beyond the authority of the state.”

Sharif delved into the aftermath of Dawn Leaks, when the minutes of a meeting in 2016 on national security -- where civilian leaders had spoken about the ‘growing diplomatic isolation’ of Pakistan for lack of action against some militant groups – were passed on to a newspaper.

The news report published by the paper had whipped up a storm but interestingly Sharif’s government had repeatedly denied the story as “fabricated and planted” at that time and even ordered an inquiry into the matter.

The PML-N supreme leader launched a scathing attack on the performance of the PTI government. He pointed out its foreign policy “failures” and also criticised it for making economic conditions harder for the lower- and middle-class citizens.

He fired a broadside at the foreign minister for issuing a statement that affected Pakistan‘s ties with Saudi Arabia. “Pakistan was one of the founding members of the OIC [Organisation of Islamic Cooperation]. We should be strengthening it along with other countries.”

The former premier said the current government was running foreign policy affairs as if it were a “child’s play”. “We need to think about why our close allies have stopped trusting us,” he added.

Sharif maintained that India “took over Kashmir” taking advantage of the opportunity that a “puppet” government was in place in Pakistan.

“We weren’t even able to protest (against the revocation of the special status of India illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir). We weren’t even able to convince the countries, which are our friends, to support us on the issue, let alone the world.”

The PML-N supreme leader noted that the people of IIOJK were still being subjected to atrocities by India. “Our foreign policy should not be in conflict with our national interests.”

Sharif further claimed that the current government was handling China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects with the same kind of “inefficiency” in had displayed in the case of the Peshawar Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) system.

The former prime minister said lawlessness and crime were prevalent across country and cited the horrific gang-rape on Sialkot-Lahore motorway earlier this month as an example. “There was this heart-wrenching incident with a daughter of the nation and the government’s sympathies were with an officer [the Lahore police chief].”

Sharif maintained that the country would remain economically crippled until there was “respect for the vote”.

He noted that the increasing prices of food, medicines and other necessities were constantly had made it difficult for the lower- and middle-class citizens to make ends meet. He added that the PTI had come to power promising employment but on the contrary thousands had lost their jobs.

The PML-N supreme leader asked the participants of the APC to take notice of the suppression of media freedom in the country and devise a strategy to counter it.

The former premier also hit out at the country’s top anti-graft body, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), claiming that it was being used as a tool for political victimisation. He criticised NAB for taking action against opposition leaders but ignoring how PM Imran acquired his Bani Gala estate, why his income tax returns do not reflect his wealth and how his sister managed to acquire so many assets while running charity organisations.

In conclusion, Sharif stressed the need to strengthen the country’s armed forces and boosting defence capabilities. “We turned the country into a nuclear power. We neither neglected this in the past, nor will we do so in future,” he added.

“But the armed forces must abide by the Constitution and the instructions of the Quaid-i-Azam and stay away from politics.”