Intra-party rift: Ghous Ali Shah lashes out at own party leaders
Warns against ‘attempts to sideline’ him.
KARACHI:
Former Sindh chief minister Ghous Ali Shah, a key leader of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz in the province, has lashed out at the PML-N leadership for what he characterises as an attempt to sideline him from the party’s politics.
At a press conference held in Karachi on Saturday, Shah spoke angrily against what he called “an attempt to knock me out of Sindh politics”. The former chief minister was recently made a senior vice president at the national level of the PML-N but views that position as ceremonial.
When asked how his remarks might be received by his party’s leadership, Shah said: “If they [PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif] attempt to sideline me, I have different options available to me. But removing me [from PML-N Sindh] would not be easy for them.”
He also said, however that “Nawaz Sharif is also a human. To err is human, to forgive is divine. Being a human, he can also make wrong decisions against which workers protest is legitimate.”
Shah reportedly wants to be made the provincial president of the PML-N. There are two other contenders for the PML-N Sindh’s leadership: Syed Hafeezuddin and Salim Zia. The PML-N’s support in Sindh seems to be divided along ethnic lines and Shah made allusions in this regard, too.
“The real source of the problem [in the party] are people from outside Sindh,” he said in a veiled reference to his two other opponents.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 14th, 2011.
Former Sindh chief minister Ghous Ali Shah, a key leader of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz in the province, has lashed out at the PML-N leadership for what he characterises as an attempt to sideline him from the party’s politics.
At a press conference held in Karachi on Saturday, Shah spoke angrily against what he called “an attempt to knock me out of Sindh politics”. The former chief minister was recently made a senior vice president at the national level of the PML-N but views that position as ceremonial.
When asked how his remarks might be received by his party’s leadership, Shah said: “If they [PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif] attempt to sideline me, I have different options available to me. But removing me [from PML-N Sindh] would not be easy for them.”
He also said, however that “Nawaz Sharif is also a human. To err is human, to forgive is divine. Being a human, he can also make wrong decisions against which workers protest is legitimate.”
Shah reportedly wants to be made the provincial president of the PML-N. There are two other contenders for the PML-N Sindh’s leadership: Syed Hafeezuddin and Salim Zia. The PML-N’s support in Sindh seems to be divided along ethnic lines and Shah made allusions in this regard, too.
“The real source of the problem [in the party] are people from outside Sindh,” he said in a veiled reference to his two other opponents.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 14th, 2011.