Pakistan Views

Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif is still undecided whether he should contest the June 18 bye-elections or not. Party spokesman Siddiqul Farooq told Business Recorder on Saturday that Nawaz had obtained nomination papers to be a candidate from two vacant seats - Lahore NA-123 and Rawalpindi NA-52 - which could be filed with the returning officers till May 10.He said at a meeting here on Friday that Nawaz sought opinion of his party colleagues about his election bid. “There is a division in the party as 50 percent parliamentarians favoured and 50 percent opposed it, he added.However the PML (N) had decided that PML (N) President Mian Shahbaz Sharif would contest for a Punjab Assembly seat to assume office of the chief minister. It may be recalled that Nawaz Sharif had filed nomination papers to contest two National Assembly seats in January 8 general elections, but the Election Commission disqualified him as he was convicted in PIA hijacking case.Nawaz did not exercise his right of appeal against his disqualification. He contended that he did not recognise the post-PCO superior courts as validly constituted courts. Nawaz wrote to the Election Commission, saying that he was being prevented from standing for political reasons.Analyst say that the Election Commission can reject Nawaz’s nomination papers for the bye-election on the same grounds, which will be a setback for the party in the changed environment. Therefore, the party leadership is reluctant to take a chance.They say Shahbaz Sharif’s case is different. In December 2007, he was facing murder charges in an anti-terrorist court, thus his nomination papers were rejected. But now the court has absolved him of such charges and he could contest the bye-election. Meanwhile, PML (Q) leaders Chaudhry Shuja’at Hussain and Chaudhry Parvaiz Elahi have said that they would oppose the candidature of the Sharif brothers.The PML (N) spokesman said that majority of members of Central Working Committee and the parliamentary party felt that Nawaz had achieved such a high stature in the national politics where it was irrelevant whether he was sitting in the parliament or not.He said Nawaz was also of the opinion that since he had been out of the country for seven long years, he should, therefore, give more time to the party re-organisation and prepare the workers for a long and sustained struggle for restoration of democracy. He said Nawaz was presently focusing all his energies on the restoration of the pre-November 3 judiciary, which he considered number one item of the coalition government’s agenda.