According to the amendment voted yesterday, the disqualification of parliamentarians cannot exceed five years. The brother of the current prime minister has been in Great Britain since 2019, when he was sentenced to seven years in prison and definitively disqualified from political life in Pakistan. A card that is played in the face of the elections while the repression against supporters of Imran Khan continues.
Islamabad () – The National Assembly of Pakistan yesterday approved an amendment allowing the country’s courts to bar parliamentarians for “a period not exceeding five years”, a measure that commentators say serves to prepare for the return of former three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, brother of current Prime Minister Shehbaz. The bill also gives the Election Commission the power to unilaterally announce the date of the elections without the approval of the president, who at the moment is Arif Alvi, a member of the Imran Khan-led opposition party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf. (ITP). The passage of the law was possible because Alvi is traveling for the hajj, the Islamic pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.
Nawaz was banned for life from politics – and sentenced to seven years in prison – by the Supreme Court in 2017, when he was found guilty in one of the many corruption cases in which he is accused. Two years later he managed to get out on bail for health reasons and escaped to London, where he became head of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N).
His brother Shehbaz was elected prime minister last year after Parliament voted against Imran Khan, who fell out of favor with the army (which experts say is the real coordinator of Pakistani politics). Khan had come to power in 2018 after almost a year in the rule of Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, chosen as Nawaz’s successor because he was one of the best-known leaders of the PML-N and because of his good relations with the military.
According to analyst Hasan Askari, it is clear that the bill to allow the return of Nawaz has been approved, and he “will be very useful politically for the party, although it is not yet clear whether he will personally participate in the elections.”
Abbasi and Sharif met in London last week. After the meeting -according to some rumors that Abbasi had not been charged within the PML-N-, Abbasi told the press that there are no disagreements within the party. Sharif later met with the main leaders of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and his father Asif Ali Zardari, who are part of the ruling coalition. According to local sources, “important issues such as economic challenges and the upcoming general elections” were discussed, scheduled for October this year.
Meanwhile, the crackdown on supporters of Imran Khan continues following protests that broke out when he was arrested on May 9. The demonstrators had attacked government and army offices demanding the release of their leader, which was later granted by order of the Supreme Court. Following internal investigations, the army fired three officers for failing to stop violent attacks by PTI supporters, and more than 100 people arrested after the protests are being tried in military courts that human rights defenders say they do not guarantee a fair defense.
Imran Khan has been calling for early elections for more than a year, arguing that the government wants to keep him out of the next election. In March, a poll declared him the most popular leader in the country, with more than 60% of the preferences against 30% of the other political leaders. However, Khan is still indicted on dozens of legal charges against him.
Nawaz Sharif also remains embroiled in a series of legal cases (he was acquitted last week after 37 years of other corruption charges), but it is established practice that trials against politicians are dropped when his party returns to power.
