LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif Tuesday criticized the verdict in Panama Papers case and questioned his disqualification by the Supreme Court.
“Where have you heard that a leader is disqualified because he did not receive a salary from his son?” Nawaz asked in his address to a convention of the PML-N social media workers.
Nawaz said that throughout the world people had the right to elect a government, but this was not the case in Pakistan. “Pakistan is a country where the offshore companies of some are halal and others haram,” he said.
“A ladla (dear) is excused despite admitting to his crime,” the PML-N chief said in an apparent reference to Imran Khan. “And when he [Imran] accepts the assets as his, they (court) say the assets are not yours. Till today they could not even prove Rs 10 worth of corruption against me,” he said, adding these are the circumstances which are destroying the country.
The PML-N chief said his party will witness a historic win in the next general election. “PML-N will have a historic win in the elections,” Nawaz said to those in attendance. “Our political opponents will fail in their intentions,” he said.
Pointing out the development work undertaken during his government, Nawaz said he delivered on his promises. “We eliminated terrorism over the past four years, with the grace of Almighty Allah. Cricket returned to Lahore. In 2013, I had promised to eliminate load shedding and that commitment was fulfilled,” he said.
However, the progress of Pakistan has come to a standstill ever since the Panama Papers decision, he lamented.
The former premier lamented that Pervez Musharraf broke the constitution but his case was still pending in the courts. “However, they gave the verdict against us in a matter of weeks,” he said.
“We cannot go back now. We will only go forward. The youth will take Pakistan forward. Nobody can stop you except God,” Nawaz said, adding that although Pakistan has been independent since its creation in 1947, its founder Quaid-e-Azam’s dream is yet to be realized to the full. “Your future should be better than your past and present,” he told the audience.
The former prime minister said that Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif stood by him through every thick and thin, and had helped fulfill all the promises he [Nawaz] made to the country.
Maryam Nawaz, daughter of deposed PM, also spoke at the convention and said that while Nawaz Sharif lost his post, his promises have been fulfilled. “Those who walked the right path have always faced difficulty … there is no room for any doctrine in democracy,” she said. “We have been facing courts since Musharraf’s tenure,” she added.
She said that those who were elected by voters could not be minus and that few elements could not implement their ideology on 200 million people.
Maryam said that her father faced hardships because he chose the right path instead of taking the easy way out. “Nawaz Sharif was attacked because he chose the right path over the easy one. He was attacked because he stood with his ideology, and his ideology is about respecting elected representatives,” she said.
While highlighting and extolling achievements of PML-N social media cell, Maryam claimed that the media cell had established footholds in every district of Pakistan. She said that the PM-N’s social media activists had played an effective part during the Grand Trunk Road rally and the NA-120 by-polls and urged party’s president to fully back them.
“The PML-N’s social media team has been very active and fully involved throughout the entire election process, and will continue to do so.”
Published in Daily Times, December 27th 2017.
