Shehbaz Sharif says Nawaz Sharif would return to Pakistan in October & will lead the election campaign
LONDON, August 25 (SABAH): Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President and former prime minister Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Friday said PML-N supreme and former prime minister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif would return to Pakistan in October and will lead the election campaign.
“We held consultations with the senior leadership of the party and we have decided that our quaid [leader] Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif will return to Pakistan in October,” he told media persons in London. During the media talk of Shehbaz Sharif, Mian Nawaz Sharif was also present.
Shehbaz Sharif landed at Heathrow earlier this week to meet his elder brother, discuss key political developments in the run-up to the general election and set a date for the party supremo’s return to Pakistan.
Nawaz Sharif departed the country in November 2019 for medical treatment following his conviction in a corruption case. He has not returned since and faces multiple cases in Pakistan.
Earlier this month, reports of Nawaz’s impending return once again started making the rounds, but no official announcement was made from the PML-N supremo himself.
Over the last year, especially since the ouster of PTI Chairman Imran Khan and the change at the helm in April 2022, at several points, some PML-N leaders claimed that Nawaz Sharif is “coming back to Pakistan next month”.
On August 10, in response to a question by an anchor, Shehbaz Sharif had said Nawaz Sharif would return in September.
Meanwhile, sources had told a private TV channel that senior leaders and legal brains in the party had been deliberating for the past few days over the timing of Nawaz Sharif’s return and the cases he is facing in Pakistan.
Talking to reporters alongside his brother in London on Friday, Shehbaz Sharif said: “All of you know that Nawaz Sharif’s name was not there in Panama [papers] … he was included [in the investigation] through a conspiracy and no action was taken against other people whose names were actually there in Panama [papers].
“Nawaz Sharif will, God willing, come to Pakistan and face the law, there are no two opinions on it.”
In response to a question on whether ‘current and former judges’ would be punished, the PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif said transparent accountability was the need of the hour and should be held across the board“. “Without it, Pakistan cannot move forward.”
On elections, Shehbaz asserted that his party had dissolved assemblies as per the “spirit of the Constitution”.
“After this, it is the legal and constitutional responsibility of the chief election commissioner to hold elections. Our party, on the instructions of Mian Nawaz Sharif, held a meeting with the Election Commission of Pakistan today” he said. “And it is certain that as a political party, we will fully facilitate the ECP for free, fair and transparent elections,” he added.
Shehbaz also decried that “fake cases” were made against him and his elder brother during the PTI tenure, adding that their political victimisation came forth to the world when they were granted clean chits by the courts.
“Now Mian sahib will come to Pakistan in October and lead the election campaign,” he added.
The PML-N leader also criticised the Chief Justice of Pakistan for being concerned about Imran Khan while he is incarcerated in jail and asked where was the top judge when Nawaz and his daughter were locked up behind bars.