Alwaght- Pakistan’s ruling party, Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), intends to appoint the brother of resigned Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as his successor to contest the 2018 general elections, Reuters reported.
However, the 65-year-old Shahbaz Sharif, who currently serves as the chief minister of the country’s Punjab Province, will first need to be elected as a lawmaker to the National Assembly before he can assume the top leadership post.
On Friday, Sharif was forced to step down following a Supreme Court ruling that disqualified him over corruption charges.
The PML-N Party is due to meet later on Saturday to appoint a short-term leader to fill the vacuum until Sharif’s younger brother is elected to the country’s National Assembly.
Shahbaz Sharif has run Punjab – which accounts for more than half of Pakistan’s 190 million population -- since 2008, emerging as a competent administrator focused on building infrastructure. He reportedly also maintains better ties with the country’s powerful military than his elder brother.
Among possible figures being considered to replace the 67-year-old Sharif in the short term are members of his outgoing cabinet, including Defense Minister Asif Khawaja, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal and Petroleum Minister Shahid Abbasi, press reports indicate.
If elected, the interim leader would remain in power for at least 45 days until Shahbaz quits as the chief of Punjab and wins a by-election to the National Assembly.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s high court has also ordered a criminal probe into the ousted prime minister and his family.
Sharif has persistently rejected the corruption charges leveled against him.
Nawaz Sharif’s resignation on Friday has plunged the nuclear-armed nation into political turmoil after several years of relative stability. His ouster has renewed concerns over Pakistan’s democracy after a member of the PML-N party suggested that elements within the powerful military had influenced the high court’s ruling against him.
"We know very well what the crime of Nawaz Sharif and the Muslim League is. What do we ask for? We ask for civilian supremacy in Pakistan,” Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafiq stated during a news briefing.
Questioned further, however, Rafiq would not identify the military as a whole.
This is while the country’s army officials have not commented on Sharif’s ouster or reported accusations of their involvement in the ruling.
“JUDICIAL COUP”
Nawaz Sharif, who has served three separate stints as prime minister, has not commented on the Supreme Court verdict against him but his party said it had “serious reservations” about the judicial process. Sharif was investigated for corruption after the “Panama Papers” data leak revealed his family used offshore companies to buy posh London apartments.
But his ouster was down to the little-used Article 62 of the Constitution, which allows for dismissal from office of anyone deemed dishonest. The Supreme Court enacted the law because Sharif’s failed to declare monthly income, equal to $2,722, from a Dubai-based company his son owned in disclosure papers filed for the 2013 elections his party won.
Sharif’s allies have privately spoken of a “judicial coup” and say every parliamentarian would likely fail the Article 62 test, including opposition leader Khan, who also has a pending Supreme Court case against him over undeclared income. The involvement of two members from military intelligence agencies as part of a six-man Supreme Court-appointed investigative panel probing Sharif had further stoked fears within PML-N that the powerful generals had a hand in the judicial proceedings.
Sharif’s two previous stints in power were also cut short, including by a military coup in 1999, but he returned from exile to win a resounding victory in general elections in 2013. No prime minister has completed a full term since independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
Meanwhile, the opposition has welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling against Sharif as a sign of progress and greater accountability in the country.
"They have given Pakistan hope. This is what everyone is celebrating,” said opposition PTI party leader Imran Khan on Friday.
