LAHORE: Rana Sanaullah, the head of the PML-N in Punjab, said on Saturday that if there are legal problems stopping former prime minister Nawaz Sharif from becoming prime minister for a fourth term, they will be taken care of when the party takes power.
For a backup plan, the PML-N seems to have come up with a way to make sure that its leader becomes prime minister for the fourth time.
Earlier, the party was still sure that there would be no legal problems with its leader becoming prime minister again, and the accommodations made to Nawaz made that seem like a possible outcome.
But the fact that Sanaullah admitted to having a plan B shows that that party may not be very sure about how the court cases against Nawaz will go.
When asked, Sanaullah did say that the party hoped that “frivolous” cases against its leader would be heard quickly and decisions would be made as soon as possible. He also said that the party would not change its mind about Nawaz becoming prime minister if there were any problems.
When asked if there was a plan to avoid conflict with the “powerful circles” so that Nawaz could finish his fourth term as PM, the head of the PML-N Punjab said that the party had never had a problem with them before.
His point was that the PTI’s sit-in happened in 2014, which was six months after Nawaz became prime minister.
He asked Nawaz, “What he could have done to get in trouble with those people in power at that time?”
When asked if his party agreed with the call for justice, Sanaullah said that they did, but that they thought the country should first get its economy back on track first. He also said, “We will go after the accountability drive later.”
When asked about the PTI, the former interior minister said that he thought the people responsible for the violence on May 9 should be forgiven if they admitted their crimes and said sorry, just like the militants in Balochistan who gave up their weapons and put their faith in Pakistan.
He went on, “Even the people of Pakistan will forgive them if they admit what they did.”
When asked about PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s criticism, the veteran PML-N member said that his party would accept it as long as it was properly expressed. As well, he said that the PML-N respected the right of all political parties to make their case to voters. He called Bilawal’s criticism of the party “antics” that were part of his campaign.
Sanaullah talked about the PML-N’s plans for the next election and said that his party thought it would win 120 to 125 of the 141 seats in the National Assembly from Punjab. He also said that the party was about 20 seats behind.
In this case, he said, the PML-N was sure it would be able to form a government with a simple majority.
He did say, though, that Nawaz would still include all political groups, even though his party was in the lead.
It was said that there was fighting within the PML-N, but Sanaullah said that there were problems in only 15% to 20% of the districts, so that wouldn’t make things harder for the party.
He said that the PML-N’s hopes were based on the results of the polls it had run and the reports from the companies it had hired to do this work. He said that in southern Punjab, the PML-N could win 35 of the 46 seats up for grabs.
The head of the PML-N also supported the politics of people who can be elected. He said that to be electable, you had to earn the trust and respect of the people in your district.
