The PMNL Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, was disqualified for life because he forgot to declare an insignificant income he had not received. Now ex-PMLN prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has been felled because he declared an asset at cost price (as required by the FBR) rather than at market price (as demanded by a judge). The PMLN’s hard hitting spokesman Daniyal Aziz has also bitten the dust because he dared to challenge some controversial judicial decisions. Much the same treatment is likely to be meted out to Talal Chaudhry, another outspoken PMLN crusader. Indeed, we may expect PMLN ex-interior minister Ahsan Iqbal and a clutch of PMLN leaders to meet the same fate now or after the elections.
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Nawaz and Mariam Sharif have been dragged to a NAB court for daily hearings in cases of alleged money laundering thirty years ago. Their lawyer’s pleas for due process have been all rubbished. Both must beg the court for leave to attend to a wife and mother’s terminal illness in a London hospital. Under the circumstances, how can one lead his party’s election campaign and another take the field on her own account?
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NAB is summoning PMLN ex-Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif and Railways Minister Saad Rafique every second day to answer a battery of questions. The ex-CM’s principal aide, Ahad Cheema, is languishing in a NAB prison even though the investigation process is still underway, an extraordinary departure from NAB rules. Fawad Hasan Fawad, the principal secretary to ex PM Nawaz Sharif, is also in the NAB dock and barred from leaving the country. Now NAB has arrested the PMLN’s popular nominee Qamarul Islam Raja without even an investigation, clearing the electoral field for PMLN rebel Chaudhry Nisar to romp home in style.
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The Aliens are spurring “electable” horses to desert the PMLN and flock to “Independent” stables, most notably in Southern Punjab where they can be corralled and suitably branded at the right time after the elections.
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Despite an upright interim prime minister like ex-CJP Nasir ul Mulk, much the same bias or discrimination is evident in the selection of various ministers, most notably highlighted by the last minute induction of a staunch PPPite and “samdhi” of the current CJP and a retired a self-righteous leader of The Aliens who had earlier been dismissed as defense secretary by a sitting prime minister for “gross misconduct, illegal action and creating misunderstandings between institutions”. The Punjab interim administration has veritably been stuffed with well-known anti-PMLN administrators and policemen. In Sindh, the ruling PPP and opposition MQM – which dutifully bow to every call of The Aliens— have conveniently banded together to choke the interim provincial government with hand-picked cronies. Balochistan’s “Independent” stables are already a scandal of the highest order.
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The Aliens have also nudged various religious parties and radical groups to either band together (like the Muttahida Majlis i Amal) or field their own candidates to whittle away the conservative votes of the PMLN (like the Lashkar e Taiba led by Hafiz Saeed and the Tehreek I Labiaq Ya Rahool Allah led by Khadim Hussain Rizvi). The Labaiq, in particular, has become a favoured child of late – it was unleashed to destabilize the PMLN government earlier this year when it successfully obtained the resignation of the PMLN’s law minister, Zahid Hamid, and followed up by the attempted assassination of the interior minister, Ahsan Iqbal. Now, in an extraordinary move, the interim-Punjab government has lifted the ban on listed terrorist organisations like the Sipah i Sahaba and Ahle I Sunnat Wal Jamaat and unfrozen the assets of its leader Maulana Ahmad Ludhianvi . Earlier, Imran Khan’s KPK government had funded and made an electoral alliance with Maulana Samiul Haq’s Darul Uloom Jamia Haqqania Akora Khattak.
Clearly, all state institutions, political parties, social groups, religious organisations and civilian administrations across the country have fallen to The Aliens. A once-vibrant and independent media has been gagged or harnessed to do The Aliens’ bidding. Under the circumstances, it is a small miracle that, by and large, the PMLN is still standing behind a battered, bruised and beleaguered Nawaz Sharif. For how long, though, is the million-dollar question.
If, for whatever reason, Nawaz Sharif decides to stay away in London for the rest of the electoral season and beyond, it will mean that he has thrown in the towel and agreed a deal with The Aliens. In that case, the NAB trials and verdict will be delayed until after the elections when The Aliens have surveyed the landscape and devised a new framework of law and order with a new parties-asset base. But if Nawaz Sharif returns and pursues his campaign as vigorously as before,he will go to prison and his PMLN will be forcefully dealt a losing hand.