Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been elected unopposed as the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), party sources confirmed.
The party’s chief election commissioner, Rana Sanaullah, released the final list of candidates, revealing that Nawaz Sharif was the sole contender for the party’s top post. Consequently, Sharif’s election as president of the PML-N is now a formality, pending official announcement and ratification by the party’s General Council.
The official declaration of Nawaz Sharif’s election will be made during the upcoming General Council meeting of the PML-N, which is set to be held shortly. Party sources indicated that members of the council would ratify his nomination through a show of hands.
It is worth noting that Nawaz Sharif was removed from the post of party president in 2018 after a Supreme Court bench ruled that a person disqualified under articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution could not be the head of a political party. Just a few months before the verdict, the Supreme Court had disqualified Nawaz for life in corruption cases related to the Panama Papers.
Last month, a resolution was passed by members of the PML-N Punjab regarding Nawaz Sharif resuming the leadership of the party. The resolution stated that since Nawaz Sharif had been acquitted of charges in corruption cases, he should take over the presidency of the party again and lead the PML-N to new heights. The resolution also asserted that Nawaz Sharif had been disqualified by the Supreme Court in 2017 through a conspiracy.
Following his acquittals by the Islamabad High Court in the corruption cases (Avenfield and Al-Azizia), and the Supreme Court’s annulment of the lifetime disqualification of parliamentarians under Article 62-1F in January, all obstacles to Nawaz Sharif becoming party president were removed, enabling his re-election.
