Pakistan’s powerful military had sent its officers to London in 2022 to persuade former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to return to the country to save the nation from destruction under Imran Khan’s rule, the ruling PML-N supremo’s son-in-law claimed on Wednesday.
Nawaz, 74, returned from London in October last year after spending four years in self-exile on medical grounds. Upon his arrival, he was acquitted in all the cases he was facing, including the Al-Azizia Mills corruption case, in which he was serving a seven-year sentence before moving to the UK.
“The army went to London (in 2022) and touched Nawaz Sharif’s knees and requested him to come to Pakistan and save it from the destruction of (former prime minister) Imran Khan,” Captain Muhammad Safdar (retd) said while addressing party workers of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). He said when Nawaz returned to become prime minister for the fourth time, the powerful circles (referring to the powerful army) decided against it.
“To prevent him from becoming the prime minister, they ensured that Nawaz lost the election from NA-15 Mansehra,” he said, criticising the Election Commission of Pakistan for manipulating the election result of Nawaz, a three-time prime minister.
Interestingly, Nawaz had won the Lahore seat in the February 8 general election, which Khan’s party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf alleged he had lost too, but the ECP declared him successful in one of the country’s worst rigged elections.
Nawaz himself had admitted that he was a candidate for the post of Prime Minister, but his party failed to get a simple majority, so it was decided to make his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif the Prime Minister.
The PTI has alleged that the PML-N had won only six per cent of the National Assembly seats and the military establishment, after getting the results changed through the ECP, gifted dozens of its won seats to the PML-N so that its puppet led by Shehbaz Sharif could come to power and serve its interests.
PML-N sources said Nawaz had agreed not to contest for the prime minister’s post after the military establishment offered him the position of his daughter Maryam Nawaz as Punjab chief minister.
The powerful military, which has ruled the coup-prone country for more than half of its more than 75 years of existence, has until now wielded considerable power in security and foreign policy matters.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
