Daily Times

PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz Monday said Opposition Leader Shehbaz Sharif will be the party’s candidate for the post of prime minister in light of the no-trust vote moved against Prime Minister Imran Khan being a success. Responding to a question during a media talk outside the Islamabad High Court (IHC), Maryam said the opposition will sit and decide on appointment of the next candidate for prime minister but the PML-N would nominate Shehbaz Sharif. In view of the no-confidence motion tabled against the premier, the opposition leader said delaying the National Assembly session was tantamount to “disobeying the Constitution and would invoke Article 6”.

Maryam said she was looking towards the courts in the event of constitutional distortion.

“Imran Khan! Your game is over,” she said, adding that the PTI had officially broken up.

“The PM is aware that no one will come to his rescue now that he has lost the game,” Maryam added. “Imran Khan believes there to be an international conspiracy against him, but he conspires against himself. Had he fulfilled his duty, there would be no reason to mobilise one million people,” she said.

Critiquing the PM’s earlier statement that his main objective of joining politics was not to check the prices of potatoes and tomatoes, Maryam said had Imran kept a tab on prices of wheat, ghee, sugar and petrol, the opposition would not have to see this day.

The PML-N leader also accused the PTI of interfering with the impartiality of state institutions. She claimed that while the ruling party “talks about neutrality”, it does not abide by the Constitution.

“Even the FIA and NAB were not allowed to remain neutral; 22 years of struggle all gone to waste because of ‘neutrality’,” the PML-N leader observed.

Accusing the ruling party of rigging elections, the opposition leader added that “counting of votes was neither complete in 2018, nor was it complete in Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Kashmir as well as the Senate”.

The PML-N leader said the PTI was “slipping away like sand”.

Referring to Imran Khan’s comments that urged dissident PTI lawmakers to return to the ruling party’s fold saying he was ready to forgive them, Maryam Nawaz accused the premier of buying votes, claiming that he had “fallen victim to the rewards process, his own arrogance and pride”.

She slammed the premier for bad-mouthing the opposition in his speeches.

“I have heard his speeches and he sounds like a defeated man [in them].”

Maryam said that every party goes through “these phases” but none ever used foul language the way Imran Khan did.

“You ridicule opponents. You oppose Maulana Fazlur Rehman. You mimic Bilawal.” She said Premier Imran looked like a joker while he’s at it. “I urge people not to let their children watch such speeches,” Maryam said, stressing that despite facing several injustices Nawaz Sharif never “let go of his moral principles”.

“Four years are sufficient to show the performance of a person. Imran Khan should know that people have shown him the red card.”

Referring to the no-confidence motion, she called it karma for the prime minister.

“You had called out Nawaz’s politics. Today, the same Nawaz has beaten you by entering your homes while sitting abroad. Now you are the one paying visits to people with one or two seats.”

You refused to visit the Hazaras, Maryam told the premier, “and said you won’t get blackmailed”. “You are the victim of your own arrogance, ‘makafat-e-amal’ and not any conspiracy.”

Maryam said there is a “wave of neutrality” in the air these days.

“We have heard this has upset some people. I didn’t realize a single world would bring down your 22-year struggle.”

“You have always conspired. You want someone to complete your numbers, someone to keep you in the game, someone to manage media for you, and someone to manage all the institutions for you.”

In the Senate elections, she pointed out, the PTI did not have enough numbers but despite that it won.

“Tell us what did you do back then? Were you involved in horse-trading? If it was legal at that time, why do you have issues now?”

Maryam maintained that being neutral was adherence to the Constitution. “It is a good move if someone is calling for following the Constitution.”

Maryam asked the Islamabad administration to not take orders of a “loser”.

The PML-N leader said after the prime minister uttered the word “neutral” during a recent gathering in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, his party members started to leave him.

“Do you want someone else to complete your count [during the voting session of the no-confidence motion]?” Maryam asked the premier, adding that if someone “is not paying heed to your request, then you are calling them animals”.

“You have not even let the National Accountability Bureau and Federal Investigation Agency remain neutral.”

The institutions are abiding by the Constitution by remaining neutral, the PML-N leader said, adding: “If they are neutral, [the prime minister] should not tremble like a fish out of water.”