Pakistan’s interim Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar on Thursday asserted that any individual facing court cases has to seek legal remedy to participate in the upcoming general elections as he rejected speculation that PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif’s decision to return to the country was part of a “deal” with the caretaker government.
The 73-year-old former prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo, who is facing several corruption cases and was declared a proclaimed offender by an accountability court in 2020, is scheduled to return to Pakistan on October 21, ending his four-year-long self-imposed exile in the UK.
The caretaker government has no soft corner for PML-N or any other political party…how can a caretaker government strike such a deal?, Kakar questioned during an interview with World Echo News, pointing out that Nawaz left Pakistan as per the court’s decision under the nose of Imran Khan’s government, and not the caretaker setup, the Dawn newspaper reported.
However, if Nawaz returns and takes part in politics, he will have to face some legal obstacles and the answers to these legal questions lie in legal remedies, the caretaker prime minister said.
Any leader, be it Imran Khan, Asif Ali Zardari, or Nawaz Sharif, everyone would have to seek legal remedy as per their case scenario, Kakar said. Besides Nawaz, Khan and Zardari are facing various court cases.
Pakistan is witnessing the formation of regimental camps and the country has been turned into a fighting ground for political position, Kakar said. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in September announced that polls would be held in the last week of January 2024. It, however, didn’t specify a date.
Last month, PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif confirmed that his elder brother Nawaz was returning to Pakistan on October 21 to lead the party’s campaign for the general election.
Subsequently, the party announced that Nawaz is ready to face all kinds of circumstances upon his return from London. Nawaz stepped down as Pakistan’s prime minister in 2017 after he was disqualified for life from holding public office by the Supreme Court for not declaring a receivable salary.
He has been living in London since 2019 after the Lahore High Court granted him four-week permission allowing him to go abroad for his treatment.
He was serving a seven-year imprisonment at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail in the Al-Azizia Mills case before he was allowed to proceed to London in 2019 on “medical grounds”. In 2020, an accountability court declared Nawaz a proclaimed offender in the Toshakhana vehicles case. He is also accused of obtaining luxury cars from the treasury house by paying just 15 per cent of the price of these vehicles.
Nawaz was convicted in the Al-Azizia Mills and Avenfield corruption cases in 2018.
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