Former Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif re-elected 'unopposed' as PML-N president after six years

Lahore: Nawaz Sharif was re-elected “unopposed” as the President of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party on Tuesday, six years after the three-time former prime minister was forced to quit the post following a Supreme Court ruling in the Panama Papers case.

The 74-year-old veteran politician, who returned to Pakistan in October last year after a four-year self-imposed exile in the UK, was elected without a contest in the party's general council meeting held here.

PML-N election commissioner Rana Sanaullah told the general council that only Nawaz was nominated for the slot of the party president.

Sanaullah sought the approval from the members of the general council who stood on their seats to endorse his nomination. They chanted slogans in his favour.

A resolution was also passed at the meeting demanding action against those (army generals and judges) involved in toppling the Nawaz government in 2017. It also expressed solidarity with the people of Palestine and Kashmir.

Nawaz, the only politician who has the distinction of becoming the prime minister of coup-prone Pakistan for a record three times, has taken the party's reins from his younger brother Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif six years after he lost the party president's office due to the Supreme Court decision in the Panama Papers related corruption case.

Nawaz was removed as the party president in 2018 after an apex court bench headed by then-chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar ruled that an individual disqualified under Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution cannot serve as the head of a political party. Only a few months before this decision, Nawaz had been disqualified for life by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers-related corruption cases.

Earlier in the day, his party, while sharing a video of preparations for the general council meeting, had said: Lion is returning to take his rightful place at the top.

“They keep removing Quaid Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, and the public keeps bringing him back. You can't remove Mian sb from the hearts of the masses,” the party said in a post on X after his re-election.

The PML-N had earlier announced convening the general council meeting on May 11 but it was postponed to coincide with the celebration of 26 years of Pakistan becoming a nuclear power.

Nawaz was the prime minister when Pakistan conducted the nuclear tests on May 28, 1998.

After his arrival from London in October last year to end a four-year self-exile there, he was acquitted in two major corruption cases -- Avenfield and Al-Azizia -- by the Islamabad High Court. He was serving a seven-year imprisonment at Kot Lakhpat Jail Lahore in Al-Azizia Mills corruption case before he was allowed to leave for the UK for four weeks on medical grounds.

The final hurdle in his reelection as president was removed this January when the Supreme Court quashed lifetime disqualification for lawmakers under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution.

Nawaz has been keeping a low profile after his party failed to secure a majority in the general elections held on February 8. However, he has recently been seen chairing Punjab government meetings and issuing directions to bureaucrats and ministers. Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of Nawaz, is the Chief Minister of Punjab province.

Prime Minister Shehbaz had earlier this month resigned as the PML-N president citing the unjust disqualification of the party supremo and his elder brother Nawaz Sharif from the PM Office.

Shehbaz, 72, said that it was time for the latter to “resume his rightful place as the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party.”

The February 8 general elections had delivered a fractured mandate and the PML-N did not get a clear majority. It joined hands with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) led by Bilawal Zardari Bhutto and other smaller parties to form the government at the federal level when Nawaz relinquished the post of prime minister in favour of Shehbaz.