ISLAMABAD: Chief Minister of Punjab Shehbaz Sharif will be the next president of Pakistan’s ruling party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
Sen. Pervaiz Rasheed, aide to ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif — Shehbaz’s older brother, told Arab News: “All senior party members have unanimously proposed Shehbaz for president of the party.”
Shehbaz Sharif will formally be named party president after the Senate elections next month, he added.
“Shehbaz is a good administrator and is well known for his good governance in Punjab,” Rasheed explained. “We believe he will instill new vigor into the party.”
PML-N’s party constitution says that if the office of president becomes vacant the secretary-general will convene, within seven days, a meeting of the Central Working Committee to elect an acting president, and that a new president must be elected within 45 days.
PML-N was served notice on Wednesday from the Election Commission of Pakistan that since the office has been vacant since July 28, 2017 — when Nawaz Sharif was banned from holding public office because of his failure to disclose his assets, as revealed in the Panama Papers — it was required to fill that vacancy “in accordance with the party’s constitution.”
Also on Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that, as a person disqualified from holding public office, Nawaz Sharif could no longer lead a political party.
“The Election Commission of Pakistan is directed to remove the name of Mian Mohammed Nawaz Sharif as president/party head of Pakistan Muslim League (N) from all relevant record(s),” the court said in its ruling.
The party has the right to file a review petition against the judgment, but Rasheed suggested that would not happen.
“Where should we file the review petition?” he said. “We are not getting justice.”
Shehbaz Sharif will be new president of PML-N
Shehbaz Sharif will be new president of PML-N
Trump insists he struck Iran on his own terms
- “We are now a nation divided between those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance,” Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X.
- Rubio himself doubled down on Tuesday after meeting with US House and Senate members, while insisting that “No, I told you this had to happen anyway”
WASHINGTON, United States: President Donald Trump and his team scrambled Tuesday to reclaim the narrative on why he decided to attack Iran, after his top diplomat suggested the US struck only after learning of an imminent Israeli strike.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio alarmed Democrats — who say only Congress can declare war — as well as many of Trump’s MAGA supporters on Monday when he said: “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.”
“We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio told reporters.
Administration officials quickly backpedalled, insisting Trump authorized the strikes because Tehran was not seriously negotiating an accord on limiting its nuclear ambitions, and the United States needed to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities.
“No, Marco Rubio Didn’t Claim That Israel Dragged Trump into War with Iran,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted Tuesday on X.
At an Oval Office meeting later with Germany’s chancellor, Trump went further, saying that “Based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they (Iran) were going to attack first. And I didn’t want that to happen.”
“So, if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”
- Had to happen? -
Rubio himself doubled down on Tuesday after meeting with US House and Senate members, while insisting that “No, I told you this had to happen anyway.”
“The president made a decision. The decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide... behind this ability to conduct an attack.”
Critics seized on the muddied messaging to accuse Trump of precipitating the country into a war without a clear rationale, without informing Congress — and without a clear idea of how it might end.
They noted that just two weeks ago, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed Trump again in Washington to take a hard line, in their seventh meeting since Trump’s return to power last year.
Some Republican allies rallied behind the president, with Senator Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, insisting that “No one pushes or drags Donald Trump anywhere.”
“He acts in the vital national security interest of the United States,” Cotton told the “Fox & Friends” morning show.
But as crucial US midterm elections approach that could see Republicans lose their congressional majority, Trump risks shedding supporters who had welcomed his pledge to end foreign military interventions.
“We are now a nation divided between those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, a top former Trump ally and a major figure in the populist and isolationist hard right, posted on X.
