Newsmakers 2017: Maryam Nawaz Sharif

Though there wasn’t much doubt about who is going to be carrying forth the legacy of the PML(N) chief, it truly became clear this year that it was going to be Maryam Nawaz.

Her foray into practical politics had started much earlier. Her much talked about media cell has been in action for most of her father’s tenure, and she also had a role in the election campaign of ‘13.

Three things set this year apart for her. First of all, the bulk of the proceedings in the Panama case, in which she, not her father, was personally involved, took place this year. She couldn’t have remained in the shadows even if she wanted to.

Second, her father Nawaz Sharif was ousted from office this year, making it impossible to argue in party higher circles that it was premature to even discuss the succession. As a result of that, her primacy in the party started being discussed and publicly contested, most famously by Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan but also by her cousin, and alleged rival, Hamza Shehbaz Sharif. Whereas she didn’t appear to care who resented her or not, she went out of the way to say that she looked up to her uncle, Shehbaz Sharif and that there were no problems on that front.

It was also in this year that she has shown that she can more than hold her own at the dais of a rally, certainly being more articulate than her uncle and cousins. Through her management of the party’s social media presence, she has made great headway into the increasingly powerful medium, hitherto before dominated by the PTI. And, of course, she displayed some of the constituency politicking chops in the NA-120 by-election campaign for her mother.

While it has been announced that Shehbaz Sharif is going to be the League’s candidate for prime minister in ‘18, rumours are rife that she will be his successor in the Punjab, making her the country’s first provincial chief executive. Even though the verdict isn’t yet out about how much the events of the year has hurt the electoral prospects of the League on the national level, it is sort of a foregone conclusion that the Punjab will remain with the party. The next year might turn out to be more interesting for her than 2017.