Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif was elected President of Punjab PML(N) in the internal election of the party, which were nothing but a farce. The mainstreams political parties have become personalised institutions and have been converted into family dynasties, where the mantle is passed from one generation to the next. It is now a bitter truth that Nawaz Sharif will not allow anyone outside the family to share power even within the PML(N). Unfortunately, the people of Pakistan have bad memory. However the thoughtful Pakistanis can never forget the past performance of Nawaz Sharif as a prime minister.
1. In 1990 “kashkol torr do” campaign was launched when thousands of ordinary Pakistani responded and sent personal savings to support this initiative, nobody knows what happened to that money but it certainly did not help in ending our dependency.
2. In 1997, he wanted to arrest the Chief Justice of Pakistan merely because he was not toeing the line and Nawaz Sharif would have done so had sense not being hammered to him. He was the PM who ordered the physical assault upon the Supreme Court of Pakistan, now Mian sahib has become a champion of independent judiciary.
3. In 1998, Nawaz Sharif ordered freezing of foreign accounts of local and expatriates after the nuclear test in May. Violating all international and local commitment, that one act by Nawaz Sharif destroyed all goodwill earned by the nuclear test.
4. In 1999 Nawaz Sharif acted in the most undemocratic way by muzzling the media and tried to impose Sharia laws and proclaim himself the Amir-ul-Momineen by attempting to run through with the 15th constitutional amendment. Who else is responsible for all the sins and wrong committed by General Musharraf whom he plucked out from Mangla and made Chief of the Army Staff? Then the very fact that he indulged in a questionable act of not allowing a Chief of Army Staff’s (Musharraf) plane to land although it was legal for him to sack the Army Chief. Nawaz Sharif was unsure of his ability to do so, that’s why he engaged in an extralegal measure to implement his desire which provided the justification for the army establishment to remove his heavily mandated government through a coup.
S T HUSSAIN
Lahore