ISLAMABAD: Deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has gathered all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to trumpet his return rally to home base in the eastern city of Lahore, his party’s center of power.
He was given a warm farewell by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar before embarking on his journey, a stretch of 280 km passing through 15 constituencies, 14 of which are held by the ruling party.
Sharif confirmed that Abbasi will continue as the premier until the next general election, due in 2018.
Celebrations are in full swing. Streets and highways are littered with streamers advertising Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party.
His supporters have flocked from near and far, further charging an already electrified atmosphere in and around the travel route.
“We’re showing our solidarity and love for Nawaz Sharif,” said one of his supporters. Arab News spoke to several people participating in the rally, and in one voice they said: “You can remove him from the chair but you can’t remove him from our hearts — let the judiciary and army know.”
Sharif’s rally is expected to amass hundreds of thousands of supporters traveling on the Grand Trunk Road, popularly known as GT Road, stopping in main cities to address his followers and enlarge his entourage.
The PML-N’s Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, minister of state for capital administration and development, told Arab News during the rally: “We’ll show our power, our strength, that he’s the people’s leader.”
Approximately 6,000 police have been deployed for security and 1,200 commandos to guard Sharif’s cavalcade following a bombing in Lahore that injured nearly three-dozen people.
The rally was delayed nearly two hours as Sharif awaited the Islamabad High Court’s decision on petitions filed against the procession by opposition party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) of Imran Khan.
The court dismissed the PTI’s plea and allowed Sharif to proceed. Attempts to contact the PTI leadership were disrupted due to cell phone jammers.
The election commission, a day prior to Sharif’s rally, sent a notification directing the PML-N to appoint a new party president.
As per the Political Parties Order 2002, a disqualified parliamentarian cannot hold any position in the party.
House leader in the Senate, Raja Zafar-ul-Haq, said the PML-N has decided that Shahbaz Sharif will take the party’s mantle.
The party also confirmed that Kulsoom Nawaz, the former first lady, has been nominated as a candidate to fill her husband’s vacant seat of Lahore district constituency.
Her chances of winning the seat in the upcoming by-election are high, political observers told Arab News.
“It’s Sharif’s center of gravity,” said journalist Mohammed Nawab. “There’s no chance of any other party able to challenge the ruling party’s seat in that constituency.”
But this further complicates matters for Sharif, who has led the party since it came to prominence in the 1990s and has always been at its helm.
Well-reputed columnist Zahid Hussain, in an article published in a local daily, summed up Sharif’s sticking point that caused friction between him and the country’s mighty military.
“With his rise to the pinnacle of political power, Nawaz Sharif tried to break away from the influence of the military establishment that also brought him down in his previous terms,” the article read.
“Although (his party) has historically remained close to the military establishment, Nawaz Sharif tried to transform it into a mass populist party, though he may not have been fully successful in his endeavor.”
Sharif views his ouster as a conspiracy, stopping short of pointing fingers at the GHQ, the military’s headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. Though he has respected the court verdict disqualifying him, he disagrees with the decision.
Abbasi, a Sharif loyalist, said any move that hampers Pakistan’s progress is called a conspiracy, clarifying Sharif’s statement.
Abbasi has hinted at amending Article 62-1(f) of the Constitution, the clause that disqualified Sharif, who was declared “dishonest” by five judges on July 28.
But Sharif’s homecoming may not be as welcoming as planned due to the return of firebrand cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri.
He holds Sharif and his brother Shahbaz, chief minister of Punjab, responsible for the killing of 14 people, including his party workers, in a protest that turned violent due to police aggression on June 17, 2014 — known as the Lahore Model Town Incident.
Qadri, chief of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) movement, gathered with several opposition party leaders and addressed a large crowd of supporters.
“For three years, we’ve been seeking justice and our appeals are pending before the courts,” said the disgruntled cleric.
“I request the same JIT (Joint Investigation Team)” that disqualified Sharif “to probe Model Town. For three years, the case hasn’t even been heard. Is this justice? Your (Sharif’s) case was heard for 273 days, then you say you’ve been dealt with cruelly.”
Qadri warned Sharif: “You think having power and doing whatever you want is democracy? That the law is only for the weak? You’ll have to answer for this. If you’ve heard my speech, hopefully you’ll cancel your plans for the ‘show’ on GT Road.”
Ousted Pakistani PM embarks on populist march in show of strength
Ousted Pakistani PM embarks on populist march in show of strength
At top UN court, Myanmar denies deadly Rohingya campaign amounts to genocide
- The country defended itself Friday at the United Nations top court against allegations of breaching the genocide convention
- Myanmar launched the campaign in Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group
THE HAGUE: Myanmar insisted Friday that its deadly military campaign against the Rohingya ethnic minority was a legitimate counter-terrorism operation and did not amount to genocide, as it defended itself at the top United Nations court against an allegation of breaching the genocide convention.
Myanmar launched the campaign in Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. Security forces were accused of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes as more than 700,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh.
“Myanmar was not obliged to remain idle and allow terrorists to have free reign of northern Rakhine state,” the country’s representative Ko Ko Hlaing told black-robed judges at the International Court of Justice.
Gambia filed genocide case in 2019
African nation Gambia brought a case at the court in 2019 alleging that Myanmar’s military actions amount to a breach of the Genocide Convention that was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.
Some 1.2 million members of the Rohingya minority are still languishing in chaotic, overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, where armed groups recruit children and girls as young as 12 are forced into prostitution. The sudden and severe foreign aid cuts imposed last year by US President Donald Trump shuttered thousands of the camps’ schools and have caused children to starve to death.
Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya Muslim minority to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982.
Myanmar denies Gambia claims of ‘genocidal intent’
As hearings opened Monday, Gambian Justice Minister Dawda Jallow said his nation filed the case after the Rohingya “endured decades of appalling persecution, and years of dehumanizing propaganda. This culminated in the savage, genocidal ‘clearance operations’ of 2016 and 2017, which were followed by continued genocidal policies meant to erase their existence in Myanmar.”
Hlaing disputed the evidence Gambia cited in its case, including the findings of an international fact-finding mission set up by the UN’s Human Rights Council.
“Myanmar’s position is that the Gambia has failed to meet its burden of proof,” he said. “This case will be decided on the basis of proven facts, not unsubstantiated allegations. Emotional anguish and blurry factual pictures are not a substitute for rigorous presentation of facts.”
Aung San Suu Kyi represented Myanmar at court in 2019. Now she’s imprisoned
Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi represented her country at jurisdiction hearings in the case in 2019, denying that Myanmar armed forces committed genocide and instead casting the mass exodus of Rohingya people from the country she led as an unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.
The pro-democracy icon is now in prison after being convicted of what her supporters call trumped-up charges after a military takeover of power.
Myanmar contested the court’s jurisdiction, saying Gambia was not directly involved in the conflict and therefore could not initiate a case. Both countries are signatories to the genocide convention, and in 2022, judges rejected the argument, allowing the case to move forward.
Gambia rejects Myanmar’s claims that it was combating terrorism, with Jallow telling judges on Monday that “genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from Myanmar’s pattern of conduct.”
In late 2024, prosecutors at another Hague-based tribunal, the International Criminal Court, requested an arrest warrant for the head of Myanmar’s military regime for crimes committed against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who seized power from Suu Kyi in 2021, is accused of crimes against humanity for the persecution of the Rohingya. The request is still pending.
