ISLAMABAD: As ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s daughter Maryam addressed the third back-to-back public meeting along with her father, she has emerged as one of the chief election campaigners of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) for the upcoming parliamentary polls. Nawaz Sharif was always the lead campaigner of his party in successive general elections. After Shahbaz Sharif’s entry in politics in the nineties, he has also been one of its top canvassers.
The 2018 elections will be the first grand electoral clash that is seeing Maryam as a major national campaigner for her party, which intensifies her active involvement in politics and the PML-N affairs, leaving no doubt that she is bracing up for a foremost mantle. She has not so far been assigned any party position. Her aggression matches and at times even surpasses her father’s mighty tone and tenor.
Two sets of principal campaigners of the PML-N are running the PML-N’s electioneering and will carry it on as has transpired by now. On one side, Nawaz Sharif and Maryam are speaking at public meetings together for the first time. They have so far addressed at least three rallies in Kot Momin (Sargodha), Haripur and Jaranwala (Faisalabad) over the past few weeks.
Earlier, she spearheaded single-handed the campaign for her mother, Begum Kulsoom, in by-election to NA-120 Lahore in September last year. This duo, as has become evident until now, is crowd-puller and vote-getter. The pair is compelled to divide their time between their recurrent appearances before an accountability court of Islamabad in connection with the references filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on the Supreme Court direction and addressing public meetings.
In case the pair was restrained to be active in the poll campaign because of any court decision, Begum Kulsoom, who is currently recovering from cancer surgery in London, is likely to fly back to Pakistan to take up this responsibility as she is expected to recover in the next few weeks.
In Jaranwala on Saturday, Nawaz Sharif and Maryam kept up their belligerent line against the July 28 judgment which disqualified him as the prime minister and ordered the NAB to file four references against them, Hussain, Hassan and Senator Ishaq Dar. “The election will be referendum to make a new Pakistan for sanctity of vote and restoration of real, speedy and genuine justice. People have not accepted the judgment against me which was based on the unwithdrawn, imaginary salary from my son’s company. Does any father receive pay from his son’s company? Is it a crime?”
Being mindful of initiation of proceedings by a five-member Supreme Court bench next week to determine the timespan of disqualification, Nawaz Sharif stated that the judges could declare him ineligible for life but people would never accept such decisions because the masses have already rejected the July 28 verdict. Another set of justices is going to decide whether disqualified Nawaz Sharif could retain the office of the president of the PML-N. “How can they violate the Election Act passed by the parliament? These days all cases being heard by the apex court are against me.”
Maryam was forceful as before and said that the judges asked Imran Khan to bring his petition before them to oust Nawaz Sharif because “you have failed to expel him.” “The judges maintained criminal silence although Nawaz Sharif’s name did not figure in the Panama Papers.”
At the Jaranwala show, Nawaz Sharif appeared unusually jolly and in a lighter mood while taking on Imran Khan, Allama Tahirul Qadri and Asif Ali Zardari. He asserted that Qadri has not only (politically) destroyed himself but has also sunk Imran Khan and Zardari (by holding a dismal rally in Lahore). Certainly, this meeting of all the opposition parties significantly damaged them and buoyed up the PML-N. The disarray and disunity among the anti-Nawaz Sharif forces and their blunders have steadily helped reinforce his political standing.
The second one-man PML-N squad of election campaigner comprises Shahbaz Sharif. Over the past four days, he has spoken at three rallies in, Mandi Bahauddin, Layyah and Sargodha. His son Humza, who has been the key figure in the electioneering for all by-polls in Punjab during the last four years, will assist him for the forthcoming electoral competition. As per the previous record, they will be separately running the campaign.
From the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), its chairman Imran Khan is the only chief election campaigner and its supporters attend his public meetings only to listen to him. There is no other PTI leader, who attracts crowds countrywide. In 2013, he was the sole main canvasser of his party. He will exclusively lead the party from front in the run-up to the 2018 polls.
As far as the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is concerned, Zardari and Bilawal will primarily spearhead its electioneering. At times, they have addressed public meetings together. But they have mostly spoken at different rallies. However, the PPP’s principal strategist is the father and the son follows him although many party leaders hold the view that Bilawal should be independent and should not be flanked or guided by Zardari.
