Nawaz’s new avatar

What will Pakistan’s politics be without Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif? Many may be asking this question as seemingly the PML-N supremo has taken a backseat in politics now that he has nominated his younger brother, Shehbaz Sharif, for premiership. Is this the end of Nawaz’s political career? Not quite, say analysts who add that until he announces his retirement, it is not the end of Nawaz Sharif. Before the February 8 polls, the PML-N led its party campaign with the mantra that Nawaz will be a fourth time prime minister. Now that we have a split mandate, Nawaz is no more in the running for the PM slot. This has led to a lot of speculation. Many are wondering if it is the end of politics for Nawaz. Reacting to these speculations, Maryam Nawaz has clarified that her father is not quitting politics and will in fact be active in politics and also be supervising the PML-N governments in the centre and Punjab during the next five years. It must be noted that the PML-N has nominated Maryam Nawaz as the party’s chief minister candidate for Punjab. The PML-N has enough numbers in the province to form a government.

For some political experts, it was quite clear that Nawaz would not want to lead a coalition government. In his election campaign, he had repeatedly said that he would want to lead a government where his party gets a simple majority so that tough decisions could be taken without appeasing coalition partners. That would though raise the question of why Nawaz doesn’t think he can lead a coalition government when he keeps talking about his past achievements as a PM. This is valid reasoning. There are those who think that Nawaz Sharif is more authoritarian in his style of politics and wants full control while Shehbaz has proved himself to be a ‘master of coalition’ in the previous PDM government when he was able to keep all his coalition partners together.

On the other hand, are we going to see Nawaz take on a Sonia Gandhi like persona now -- giving political posts to others while taking all the major party and political decisions himself? Could he be aware also of the bad optics of being the PM himself while his daughter becomes the CM of the largest province? The Shehbaz-Hamza duo in the previous PDM tenure had turned out to be a liability for the party. Then the question arises: why wasn’t one of these positions given to anyone outside the party? Nawaz’s brother will be the next PM while his daughter will be the CM of Punjab. To this, political experts say that Nawaz has actually done all this for his daughter’s political career. He has put his legacy and political career at stake so that his daughter can become the first female CM of Punjab and a successful one at that given the mandate and political and familial support she brings with her. For this, Nawaz will be sitting in Lahore keeping a watch on Maryam’s every move as CM and mentoring her along the way. In the ultimate analysis, Nawaz Sharif may have compromised or sacrificed many things and narratives along the way in order to ensure a smooth transfer of power to Maryam in Punjab and to officially designate her as his political successor in the PML-N. This will be the first step to ensure this. There is no doubt that Nawaz is one of the most experienced politicians in Pakistan at the moment. His expertise and experience will help his party tread a very difficult path in the coming days ahead. Perhaps, a steadying pair of hands in the form of Zardari from the PPP and Nawaz from the PML-N may keep an otherwise fragile partnership intact.