By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who was barred from holding public office for life over corruption charges, has been cleared to run for parliament in next year’s national elections.
Sharif, 73, the leader of the main opposition party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), is seeking to regain his political clout after returning from London in October.
He faces several corruption cases in Pakistan, which he denies, and has challenged the Supreme Court’s 2017 ruling that disqualified him from politics for not declaring income from a company owned by his son.
He was later convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2018 but was released on bail in 2019. Sharif left for London in November of the same year after getting permission from the court to seek medical treatment abroad.
Sharif has denied any wrongdoing and repeatedly accused the military leadership and senior judges at the time of conspiring to end his government.
The election commission’s returning officer in the northern district of Mansehra approved Sharif’s nomination papers for the Feb. 8 election, despite objections from his rivals, who argued that he was ineligible to run.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Azam Swati, through his representative Shahid Rafiq, challenged Sharif’s nomination papers, arguing that the returning officer was not authorized to clear them.
However, the returning officer rejected the objections and cleared Sharif to run in the upcoming general elections, scheduled for February 8, 2024.
Sharif, a three-time prime minister, still needs the Supreme Court to overturn his lifetime ban on holding public office. A hearing on the ban is expected in January.”
Sharif’s return to Pakistan in October, reportedly after striking a deal with the military, has revived his party’s fortunes and posed a challenge to the jailed but most popular leader Imran Khan.
Khan, a former cricket star, resigned in 2022 after losing a confidence vote in parliament. He was later convicted in August for failing to disclose assets earned from the sale of state gifts while he was in office. Khan was sentenced to three years in prison in 2022, but the sentence was suspended by the Islamabad High Court.
Khan, 71, is also disqualified from running in the election because of his conviction, but he has filed nomination papers for a seat in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, where he faces a tough contest from Sharif’s party and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), led by Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, the son of former president Asif Ali Zardari and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
However, objections were raised to their nomination papers on different grounds, and the returning officers reserved their decisions.
Bhutto-Zardari is contesting from NA-127, where he faces a challenge from a person who is not a registered voter in the constituency. The PPP leaders said that the objection was invalid and expected the returning officer to set it aside. Khan faces an objection based on his conviction in the Toshakhana case.
Khan’s counsel said that the conviction did not bar him from contesting the elections and that the objector was not a valid approver in the case.
He also said that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) could not punish anyone and that the constitutional provisions of Article 62 and Article 63, which deal with the eligibility of candidates, did not apply to Khan.
The returning officers in both constituencies reserved their decisions after hearing the arguments and said that they would announce them soon.
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