Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Jailed former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party on June 23 reiterated its demand for Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja’s immediate resignation for failing to hold “free and fair” elections and protested against the “injustices” being committed against the party, according to media reports.

“Leaders of 71-year-old Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, along with other National Assembly members, led a protest rally from the Parliament to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on the Constitution Avenue in Islamabad,” The Express Tribune newspaper reported.

Led by Leader of Opposition and party leader Omar Ayub, the protesters demanded the resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Raja and election commission members for alleged poll rigging.

The controversial February 8 general elections in Pakistan were marred with massive rigging allegations. During the rally, Mr. Ayub called for the immediate resignation of CEC Raja and other members of the ECP, alleging that the only job of the Election Commission was to conduct clean and transparent polls, but it failed to fulfil its constitutional duty, The News International newspaper reported.

“The protesters were stopped from reaching the electoral body’s central office, as large contingents of security personnel were deployed outside the ECP building,” the report said. Slogans were also chanted for the release of party founder and cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan.

Mr. Khan has been incarcerated in the high-security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi since September last year. He was shifted to this prison from the District Jail Attock, where he had been lodged after his arrest on August 5, 2023, following his conviction in the Toshakhana case.

Addressing the rally, PTI chairman Barrister Gohar Khan said, “The doors of courts have been closed on Opposition leaders; our women are in jail, and history will remember them.” He said that it was a matter of regret that all the Parliamentarians were coming out on the streets and protesting for the release of PTI founder Khan,” the report said.

“Today, we have come out against this injustice. Our voice is not being heard in this House (Parliament). Whatever we said in the House, our voice was silenced. We want the women’s release. This is a clear violation of human rights,” he said.

Addressing the protesters, the party’s central leader, Asad Qaiser, said, “On May 9, we were targeted on the pretext that we are not negotiating with anyone. Our voice is not heard in Parliament, which amounts to our gross abuse.”

After the controversial general elections, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan Peoples Party formed a coalition government after intense negotiations following a fractured poll verdict. Independent candidates – a majority backed by the PTI party – won 93 of the 265 National Assembly seats contested in the February 8 election.

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif releases a dove as he arrives to address a welcoming rally in Lahore, Pakistan, on Oct. 21, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif signed applications on his return to Pakistan to restore pending appeals against his convictions in the Avenfield Apartments and Al-Azizia corruption cases.

Sharif, 73, the three-time Prime Minister and supremo of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), returned to Pakistan on October 21 after spending four years in self-imposed exile in London.

Sharif signed the applications at Islamabad Inter­national Airport on October 21

The applications, prepared by his legal team, will be filed in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) Division Bench and are likely to be heard on October 24, a PML-N lawyer told Dawn newspaper.

Sharif’s legal team will also present a petition seeking protective bail. Besides, Sharif is also supposed to appear before an accountability court on the same day, the report said.

The former Prime Minister was convicted in the Avenfield and Al-Azizia cases and was declared a proclaimed offender in the Toshakhana vehicle case, which is pending before an Islamabad accountability court.

He was on bail in these cases when he left for the U.K. in 2019 on medical grounds.

On July 6, 2018, a few days before the general elections, accountability court judge Muhammad Bashir convicted Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz Sharif and her husband, Captain Safdar Awan, in the Avenfield Apartments case that was investigated by a six-member joint investigation team formed to look into the Panama Papers revelations.

While an Islamabad High Court division bench virtually cleared Sharif in the Avenfield apartments case, calling the accountability court’s decision “not correct“, Sharif’s absconder status meant that he was not exonerated despite the court observing a lack of substantial evidence against him, the report said.

The detailed order said the accountability watchdog could not give a satisfactory answer to the question of whether the prosecution had “discharged the onus required on its part”, it said.

The prosecution had to prove that Sharif had purchased Avenfield Apartments in the name of Maryam through corrupt and illegal practices and that she, being his dependent, had aided and abetted him by concealing the true ownership.

It also had to prove that when the properties were acquired, Sharif was a public office-holder.

“There does not exist on record any evidence to the effect,” the court order said.

Nawaz Sharif. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Ahead of his return to Pakistan after four years, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on October 21 deplored the “very chaotic” situation back home and expressed confidence that his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party was “competent” to take the cash-strapped country out of the present crisis.

Pakistan court acquits former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 37-year-old ‘bribe’ case

“The 73-year-old PML-N supremo will fly in from Dubai to Islamabad on a chartered plane,” former Finance Minister and PML-N stalwart Ishaq Dar said.

“After staying an hour or so in Islamabad, he will leave for Lahore to address a rally at Minar-i-Pakistan,” Mr. Dar told journalists on October 20.

Talking to reporters at the Dubai airport, he deplored the existing situation of the country which in his words was far worse than in 2017 when he was disqualified by the Supreme Court and later convicted by an accountability court in two cases of corruption.

“The situation is not better than 2017…and it pains me to see all this that our country has gone back instead of going forward,” he said, adding that it was time to think about why the country came to the situation.

“The situation in Pakistan is very chaotic and that is very worrying,” Nawaz was quoted as saying by Geo News. “We are competent enough to solve the problems of the country,” he said before his departure from Dubai airport.

“People are suffering in Pakistan and it is painful but there is hope that we can improve the situation. We created the mess and only we can fix the situation.” When asked about the elections, he said that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) was empowered to decide the date of the elections.

Talking about his fate after his conviction in 2017, he said that he left everything to God and that he was successfully returning to Pakistan.

According to the party, Nawaz will likely land in Islamabad at 12.30 p.m. and leave for Lahore after a couple of hours. He may first go to his Jati Umra residence before leaving for Minari-Pakistan later in the day.

The reason Nawaz is arriving in Islamabad instead of Lahore is that his touchdown in the capital was necessary to make bail, earlier granted by the Islamabad High Court on Thursday, the Dawn newspaper reported.

“Putting up an emphatic show for the homecoming of Nawaz Sharif is very important to tell everyone around that the PML-N still is a popular party in Lahore, which was once its citadel,” a PML-N leader from Punjab said.

“And the party leadership here will succeed in it, as a lot more is at stake in this regard.” He said Nawaz’s arrival would give a much-needed impetus to the party at a time when the country was heading for general elections in January. “He will lead the party polls campaign and become the premier for the fourth time,” he said.

In Lahore, the PML-N leadership, including Shehbaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz Sharif and Hamza Shehbaz, spent a busy day on Friday to ensure that caravans of the party workers from Balochistan, Sindh and Gilgit-Baltistan left for Lahore and those who have to come from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab will leave on Satur­day morning.

Even though the party has an ambitious target of assembling one million people, the organisers on Friday placed only 10,000 chairs. Thousands of Punjab police officials, both in uniform and plain clothes, will perform security duties in and outside the venue.

The PML-N has also categorically told ticket aspirants that their candidature may not be considered if they fail to meet the required target of bringing people to the venue on Saturday, the Dawn report said. According to the party, only Nawaz will speak at the public meeting. The PML-N has also hired two small aircraft to shower rose petals in Lahore on Saturday.

Nawaz left for London in Nove­m­ber 2019 on medical grounds after a higher court granted him bail for four weeks. By that time, he had served half of his seven-year jail term in the Al-Azizia corruption case.

During the four years since then, Nawaz was declared a proclaimed offender in Al-Azizia and Avenfield corruption cases for his continuous absence from the proceedings on appeals against the sentences.

The Islamabad High Court on Thursday granted him protective bail until October 24 in both cases after NAB did not oppose the petitions filed by him.

He stepped down as Pakistan’s Prime Minister in 2017 after he was disqualified for life from holding public office by the Supreme Court after a probe into his family’s wealth following the 2016 Panama Papers leak. Nawaz Sharif has consistently denied any wrongdoing and termed it as a politically motivated case.

Lahore:

Pakistan’s self-exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has said that his country is begging money from the world while India has reached the moon and hosted the G20 summit, blaming the country’s former generals and judges for its economic mess.

Pakistan’s economy has been in a free fall mode for the last many years, bringing untold pressure on the poor masses in the form of unchecked double-digit inflation.

“Today Pakistan’s prime minister goes country to country to beg for funds while India has reached the moon and is holding G20 meetings. Why Pakistan couldn’t achieve the feats India did. Who is responsible for this here?” Sharif asked while addressing a party meeting in Lahore from London via video link on Monday evening.

“When Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the prime minister of India, it had only a billion dollars in kitty but now India’s foreign exchange reserves have risen up to $600 billion,” he said and questioned where India has reached today and where Pakistan is left behind begging the world for some bucks.

In July, the IMF transferred USD 1.2 billion to cash-strapped Pakistan, part of the USD 3 billion bailout programme for nine months to support the government’s efforts to stabilise the country’s ailing economy.

Sharif has for the first time announced his return to the country on October 21 to lead the party’s political campaign in the upcoming elections, ending his over four years of self-imposed exile in the UK.

In November 2019, Sharif, serving a seven-year jail term in AlAzizia Mills corruption case, was helped by the then army chief Gen Bajwa to leave the country on medical grounds. The PML-N says it will secure a protective bail for him before his arrival to Lahore next month. His party has planned a historic welcome on his return.

Sharif lashed out at the military and judicial establishment of 2017 whom he termed responsible for sending him home from the office of the prime minister.

“The man (Nawaz) who rid the country of power load shedding was sent home by four judges,” Sharif said in his emotional speech. He added that then-army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and then Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief General Faiz Hamid were behind his ouster.

“(Former) chief justices Saqib Nisar and Asif Saeed Khosa were tools of [the former army chief and his spy chief]. Their crime is bigger than a murder offence. Giving them pardons will be an injustice to the nation. They don’t deserve pardon,” Sharif said, vowing to hold them accountable.

“These ‘characters’ who unleashed economic misery on the people of Pakistan will have to face accountability,” he pledged.

Sharif also declared that his party will win in upcoming general elections.

Since some former aides to Sharif’s PML-N have been appointed to the caretaker federal cabinet, and the party (PMLN) is not joining the demand to hold elections within 90 days after the dissolution of the assemblies, the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari suspects the Sharifs of cosying up to the powerful military establishment.

Some PPP leaders have accused the PML-N of becoming a ‘darling of the military’ and conspiring against its former allies to gain power.