Lahore: Three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif is set to be re-elected as leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Tuesday, six years after he lost his premiership following the Supreme Court ruling in the Panama Papers case.
The general council meeting is scheduled to be held at a local hotel, Dawn reported. The 74-year-old veteran politician, who returned to Pakistan in October last year after four years of self-imposed exile in Britain, is likely to win unopposed, despite 11 party members having received their nomination papers for the party leadership, the paper said.
According to reports, the PML-N had announced that it would convene its general meeting on May 11, but it was postponed to coincide with the 26th anniversary of Pakistan acquiring nuclear power.
PML-N Punjab leader Rana Sanaullah suggested at a press conference that Sharif would win unopposed.
Responding to a question about whether there were any other candidates willing to run against the former prime minister, Sanaullah said that if any party member wanted to run against the former prime minister, he should come forward.
Asked why democratic process was not followed to elect a new president, Sanaullah said the party was a slave to the establishment and it was Nawaz Sharif who made it the party of the people, adding that it was Nawaz Sharif who galvanised the party after Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
In response to another question on why Nawaz Sharif was not in politics after the February 8 general elections, Sanaullah said the former prime minister was not angry with anyone and was active within the party. He added that all major decisions of the party and government were taken by him.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif resigned as PML-N leader over the unfair disqualification of the party leader and his brother Nawaz Sharif from the prime minister’s office.
Shehbaz, 72, said the time has come for Nawaz to be restored to his rightful position as head of the Pakistan Muslim League party.
With divided support, the PML-N failed to win a clear majority in the February 8 general election. After Nawaz stepped down as prime minister and Shehbaz became prime minister, the PML-N joined forces with Bilawal Zardari Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and other smaller parties to form a government at the federal level.
Much earlier, in 2017, Nawaz resigned as the country’s prime minister after the Supreme Court stripped him of his life title for failing to declare a salary he was owed.
Following the trial in the Panama Papers case, the Supreme Court in February 2018 disqualified the PML-N’s top leader as the party’s leader.
