- Nawaz digs in
PML-N will not agree publicly to any rifts in private, of course, but if Shahbaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan really did try to get Nawaz Sharif to change course, and he did not agree (clearly), a few hard questions are going to present themselves soon enough. That Nawaz will do what he can to drag the judiciary and the so called establishment out on the streets is now factored into the equation. But if, or rather when, the establishment flexes some muscles of his own, will Nawaz face a similar, yet sterner, request from his colleagues?
Nawaz remembers of course, even if others forget for a while, that these troublesome NAB references have a cut-off date. He also knows that his team is doing no better than they did in the Supreme Court and then before the JIT. And with a result promised before the election, how far will the present PM and others bend to Nawaz’s will if, should push come to shove, a far deeper confrontation with very serious consequences is needed? Even as these contradictions begin to play out, they are causing a jam of sorts within the ruling party. PPP to some extent and PTI to a larger degree have already started their election campaigns. PML-N, on the other hand, seems caught in fire-fighting and survival mode.
Perhaps Nawaz can do his party no bigger favour at present than just concentrate on the cases against himself and his children. Already his desire to remain PML-N president has required the party to go well out of its way. Now, as the question regarding who will run for PM in the next election becomes unavoidable, it will become clearer whether Nawaz holds his family or the party interest supreme. Nawaz should stop and think one more time about the opportunity cost of the kind of confrontation he seems bent upon engineering.