Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), returned to Pakistan on Saturday after being away for four years and addressed a public gathering at Minar-i-Pakistan, outlining a nine-point agenda he believes will help the country and its people overcome crises like inflation, poverty, and unemployment.

The three-time former prime minister gave a speech that marked the official start of the PML-N’s election campaign. In it, he laid out his economic and political agenda for the country while striking a conciliatory tone, highlighting the importance of economic stability and implying normalization of relations with India.
Sharif, who had been granted temporary leave to travel abroad for medical reasons in 2019, has returned to Lahore from London. He has avoided from directly identifying his “usual suspects,” including former judges and general, but has questioned their role in his resignation over, what he calls, “trumped-up charges.”
The PML-N leadership had already announced that he will be unveiling his blueprint for the party’s future during a rally on October 21.
Nawaz mentioned spending cuts in his speech, saying that they will be one of his top goals in office.
The second portion of his address was dedicated to the topic of raising income and revenues and making major adjustments in the taxation system, which is often discussed by political leaders but rarely carried out.
Nawaz continued by saying that strengthening exports was crucial for robust sustainable economic growth and that quick action was needed to boost exports.
Pakistan’s export base has been stagnant for quite some time, and this has been a constant source of worry for the country’s rulers.
Since the rise of the information economy, his fourth goal was to usher in a technological revolution in the field of IT.
Nawaz claimed that he will be working on lowering energy (electricity and gas) prices in the future, even going so far as to compare electricity bills of different people under his reign and under the PTI chairman’s administration.
For some reason, the management of loss-making SOEs was on Sharif’s list of things to do, despite the fact that privatizing large SOEs had always proven to be an extremely complex process.
According to a recent World Bank report, Pakistan’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are the worst in South Asia, costing taxpayers more than Rs458 billion annually to maintain operations and involving loans and guarantees worth around 10% of GDP.
That sum was equivalent to around 3.1% of GDP in 2016, thus not only were the businesses unable to improve their financial standing, they were also imposing a greater financial burden on the public.
The PML-N leader’s program also included making it easier for young people and women to find work. According to a recent World Bank report, the poverty rate in Pakistan rose to 39.4 percent in the most recent fiscal year, with an additional 12.5 million individuals slipping into the trap as a result of the country’s weak economy.
It stated that “approximately 95 million Pakistanis are now living in poverty.”
Another long-promised item, a technological revolution in agriculture, was included on his list of goals. Pakistan is predominantly an agricultural nation, yet it has struggled to meet local demand for this key food item in the past.
Finally, Nawaz has pledged to improve the judicial system.
Nawaz, who was deposed and disqualified in 2017 owing to the infamous Panamagate incident and yet had to appear before the court on Tuesday in corruption charges, had long promised but so far failed to implement improvements in the judicial system.
While waiting for his corruption trial to begin in March 2018, Nawaz said, “the country’s judicial system requires reforms and the PML-N’s manifesto for the next general elections will include a complete system that will ensure swift and inexpensive justice for the public.”
However, the PML-N eventually lost the elections, Nawaz was imprisoned and the legal struggle continued when PTI Chairman Imran Khan took office as prime minister. Now that Imran was behind bars and Nawaz had returned from exile in London after four years, the tables had shifted.
His last arrival from the Lahore High Court resulted in his arrest, but this time he was able to secure a court order preventing his arrest until after his arrival in Islamabad on October 24.
Just as in 2018, he arrived before the crucial general election.
The elections were set for January of the next year, promising a dramatic battle in the political arena.