Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Nawaz Sharif will reassume the office of the president of the party after 10 years in PML-N’s Central General Council’s meeting at the Convention Centre.
The Election Commission constituted by PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif comprising Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Muhammad Hamza, Syed Mamnoon Hussain, Changez Khan Marri, Pir Sabir Shah, Shah Ghulam Qadir and Haji Akbar will look after the election process but the party sources claim that the central office bearers would be elected unopposed. The party’s election commission will receive nomination papers till 11am.
There is a consensus in the party’s top command that Nawaz Sharif and Sartaj Aziz would be elected party’s president and secretary general respectively unopposed as no party member would submit their nomination paper against them. “Ahsan Iqbal will be given the position of additional secretary general while Senator Pervez Rashid is next information secretary of the PML-N. Senator Raja Zafarul Haq will remain party’s chairman while Makhdoom Javed Hashmi would be elected as senior vice president of the PML-N,” a source said. “One obvious evidence of mala fide intentions of the party leadership is the declaration of Ahsan Iqbal, former party secretary information, as additional secretary general, on invitations dispatched to all party central council members astonishingly when PML-N is making preparation to hold party elections,” a senior PML-N leader spilled the beans.
However, he said that PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif had all powers to make changes in the names at the eleventh hour and even one minute before the so-called election. According to sources in the Central Secretariat, nomination papers were not available online on the party’s website despite pompous advertisements in the media. At the time of last party election held in 2005, central general council consisted of around 4000 members but this time it had shrunk to 800 members. “Most of the previous members who stood beside PML-N during the Musharrraf era were removed just to hush up voice of dissidents and get the work done as per wishes of Nawaz Sharif,” a party leader said. PML-N Senator Pervaiz Rashid, though claimed to get provincial office bearers elected before the election of central office bearers, but now there was another way round, he saidThe PML-N’s Central General Council had elected Shahbaz Sharif as president in 2002 in place of Nawaz to enable the party to participate in the 2002 elections after former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf, through his controversial Legal Framework Order (LFO), barred a political party headed by a convicted person from contesting an election.
After Shahbaz Sharif’s re-election in 2006 Nawaz Sharif dissolved all bodies of the party at a convention at Bhurban in Sept 2009 for new elections. In party’s Central General Council meeting, around 2,500 general councillors from all over the country as well as observers will be given briefings by Senator Ishaq Dar on the country’s economic situation while Ahsan Iqbal and Sartaj Aziz would brief participants on good governance and foreign affairs with special focus on war on terror respectively. PML-N openly mocked its own claims of championing democracy by not following its constitution at the district and provincial officers, who were handpicked by Nawaz Sharif. There is a general dissent amongst the workers on the selection of provincial officials because of the language issue.
