ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s former prime minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, on Thursday challenged the decision of an election tribunal that refused to accept his nomination for the upcoming election and disqualified him for life.
Abbasi claimed the tribunal overstepped its authority under a controversial constitutional clause that requires aspiring candidates and public office holders to be truthful and honest.
The former PM, who is seeking to contest the poll from his home constituency in Murree, was disqualified on Wednesday after the tribunal in Rawalpindi scrutinized his nomination documents and said he had concealed facts and withheld information.
The tribunal ordered that Abbasi “is not a sadiq (truthful) and ameen (honest) person” and is, therefore, “not a qualified person to be elected or chosen as a Member of Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament)” under the conditions set by Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973.”
The same constitutional proviso was used to disqualify Abbasi’s ousted leader and predecessor Nawaz Sharif in July last year.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) stalwart and former foreign minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif was also disqualified under the same clause near the end of the party’s tenure, but a court later overturned the decision.
PML-N information secretary Mushahidullah Khan claims the party is being systematically persecuted and victimized. “The disqualification decisions since July are one-sided, partial and biased,” Khan told Arab News.
The latest blow to the PML-N signals pre-poll engineering to create obstacles for the party leadership, he said.
“If it were any other political party, it would have collapsed, but we have been unified and resilient.”
Khan said he is confident the party will win in the upcoming polls unless the elections are rigged.
Although Abbasi has been granted permission by the tribunal to stand for elections from the Islamabad constituency after a temporary setback of rejection, Khan fears more challenges as the polls approach.
“If he has been disqualified for one constituency, I don’t see how the tribunal is allowing him campaign in another,” said Khan.
In a statement sent to Arab News after meetings with the European Union Chief Election Observer, Michael Gahler, and the President of the National Democratic Institute, Kenneth Wollack, Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed, chairman of the PML(N) Central Media Committee, said his party would resist any attempt at rigging or interference, intimidation or manipulation of the elections.
Political pundits observe a misuse of the controversial constitutional clauses inserted during military rule in the 1980s to squeeze politicians and crush their popularity.
Political analyst Dr. Nazir Hussain told Arab News that politics in Pakistan “wouldn’t be politics without some sort of manipulation” and agreed that the constitutional clauses were being used against some politicians.
Another political expert, Qamar Cheema, said that with the antigraft watchdog “NAB and judicial activism over-stretching its authority, the public perception is that state institutions are proactive for a particular purpose, which is not to let PML-N have a favorable environment for contesting elections.”
“Institutions will have to dispel this impression, otherwise their credibility will be at stake. PML-N’s leadership is in trouble. Elections are around the corner and this makes PML-N’s case of victimhood more serious,” said Cheema.
Former Pakistani PM challenges election ban
Former Pakistani PM challenges election ban
- PML-N claims ‘election bias’ following leadership disqualifications
- PML-N accuses state forces of poll rigging and targeting of party leaders, but vows to work its way to victory
UN slams world’s ‘apathy’ in launching aid appeal for 2026
- ‘Prioritized’ plan to raise at least $23 billion to help 87 million people in the world’s most dangerous places such as Gaza and Ukraine
UNITED NATIONS, United States: The United Nations on Monday hit out at global “apathy” over widespread suffering as it launched its 2026 appeal for humanitarian assistance, which is limited in scope as aid operations confront major funding cuts.
“This is a time of brutality, impunity and indifference,” UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told reporters, condemning “the ferocity and the intensity of the killing, the complete disregard for international law, horrific levels of sexual violence” he had seen on the ground in 2025.
“This is a time when the rules are in retreat, when the scaffolding of coexistence is under sustained attack, when our survival antennae have been numbed by distraction and corroded by apathy,” he said.
He said it was also a time “when politicians boast of cutting aid,” as he unveiled a streamlined plan to raise at least $23 billion to help 87 million people in the world’s most dangerous places such as Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Haiti and Myanmar.
The United Nations would like to ultimately raise $33 billion to help 135 million people in 2026 — but is painfully aware that its overall goal may be difficult to reach, given US President Donald Trump’s slashing of foreign aid.
Fletcher said the “highly prioritized appeal” was “based on excruciating life-and-death choices,” adding that he hoped Washington would see the choices made, and the reforms undertaken to improve aid efficiency, and choose to “renew that commitment” to help.
The world body estimates that 240 million people in conflict zones, suffering from epidemics, or victims of natural disasters and climate change are in need of emergency aid.
‘Lowest in a decade’
In 2025, the UN’s appeal for more than $45 billion was only funded to the $12 billion mark — the lowest in a decade, the world body said.
That only allowed it to help 98 million people, 25 million fewer than the year before.
According to UN data, the United States remains the top humanitarian aid donor in the world, but that amount fell dramatically in 2025 to $2.7 billion, down from $11 billion in 2024.
Atop the list of priorities for 2026 are Gaza and the West Bank.
The UN is asking for $4.1 billion for the occupied Palestinian territories, in order to provide assistance to three million people.
Another country with urgent need is Sudan, where deadly conflict has displaced millions: the UN is hoping to collect $2.9 billion to help 20 million people.
In Tawila, where residents of Sudan’s western city of El-Fasher fled ethnically targeted violence, Fletcher said he met a young mother who saw her husband and child murdered.
She fled, with the malnourished baby of her slain neighbors along what he called “the most dangerous road in the world” to Tawila.
Men “attacked her, raped her, broke her leg, and yet something kept her going through the horror and the brutality,” he said.
“Does anyone, wherever you come from, whatever you believe, however you vote, not think that we should be there for her?”
The United Nations will ask member states top open their government coffers over the next 87 days — one day for each million people who need assistance.
And if the UN comes up short, Fletcher predicts it will widen the campaign, appealing to civil society, the corporate world and everyday people who he says are drowning in disinformation suggesting their tax dollars are all going abroad.
“We’re asking for only just over one percent of what the world is spending on arms and defense right now,” Fletcher said.
“I’m not asking people to choose between a hospital in Brooklyn and a hospital in Kandahar — I’m asking the world to spend less on defense and more on humanitarian support.”
