Polls only after ‘scales of justice’ are even: Maryam

SAHIWAL: In a fiery speech on Monday, Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) Senior Vice President Maryam Nawaz said “it is an election year, and elections will be held, but only after the scales of justice are balanced”.

Addressing a workers convention in Sahiwal, she demanded redress of ‘injustices’ against the party’s supremo, Nawaz Sharif, ahead of the next elections. “Elections will be held, but first all injustices done to Nawaz Sharif should be compensated,” she demanded. “The titles like godfather and Sicilian mafia [given by the apex court to Nawaz Sharif] will have to be withdrawn,” she thundered.

Maryam, who also holds the position of party chief organiser, said: “Elections will be held after the conviction of innocent Nawaz Sharif is undone.” Nawaz, who is residing in London since 2019, stepped down as the prime minister on July 28, 2017, after being disqualified from holding public office by the Supreme Court in a landmark decision in a case. The five-member SC bench had unanimously disqualified Nawaz for failing to disclose his un-withdrawn receivables constituting assets from UAE-based Capital FZE in his nominations papers for the 2013 general election, stating that that meant he was not “honest” and “truthful”, as per the Constitution.

The PMLN leader said her party was not afraid of elections, adding that they were preparing for the upcoming polls. “The elections will be held after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan will be measured on the same standards of justice set for Nawaz Sharif,” she added.

The PMLN leader asserted that the polls would be held when the “watch thief” is brought to justice. “Watch thief must be held accountable. He is Pakistan’s biggest thief who did not even spare watches,” she added.

Maryam accused Bushra Bibi, former first lady, of receiving a five-carat diamond for approval of each file during the past PTI-led government. The PMLN leader claimed that traces that former spy chief Lt-General (retd) Faiz Hameed left behind were still saving Khan. Hameed is hatching conspiracies even today in Chakwal, she alleged.

Calling former chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar “Dam Wala Baba”, Maryam said he was still assigning the task to his “group” installed in the judiciary.

Berating the PTI chairman, Maryam said that Khan, despite being an “absconder” at that time, used to attend the hearing of the Panama papers case on daily basis in the court of Justice Asif Saeed Khosa.

Taking a jibe at Khan, the PMLN leader said that whenever the court summons him, the PTI chief shows his plaster cast. She also raised questions over the “slow pace” of proceedings of the cases filed against the deposed prime minister.

Maryam told Khan that the establishment, who reportedly brought him to power, has gone home now. “You have done bench fixing with the connivance of your facilitators,” she said. Commenting on the PTI chief’s court cases, Maryam asked him to stop being a cowardly leader and face the music. “A leader is not one who hides in his house with a plaster cast on his leg.”

About Khan’s reaction to audio leaks, the PMLN scion said the PTI chief would go on about “agencies recording” when he was in power. “Today, he asks who did the recording and who taped. You should speak up about what is in the audio tapes,” she questioned Khan in her address. Maryam insisted that the man who hid his child from Pakistan’s courts should be questioned.