Ousted Pakistan PM’s wife wins his seat in Parliament
ISLAMABAD: Ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s wife Kulsoom Nawaz will replace him in Parliament after she won a byelection in his Lahore constituency.
Official results declared on Monday showed that Kulsoom, of the Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz (PML-N), won 61,745 votes against 47,099 for her main opponent, Dr. Yasmin Rashid of Imran Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehrik-eInsaaf (PTI), in Sunday’s poll. There were more than 40 other candidates.
The constituency is a historical stronghold of the PML-N, and the former prime minister has represented it since the mid-1980s. However, his wife’s majority of 14,646 was well down on the 39,345 majority secured by Sharif at the last election in 2013.
“This should be a worry for PML-N because this constituency is supposed to be its stronghold,” the political analyst and columnist Zahid Hussain told Arab News. “The marginal win of 7.5 percent is not a very good omen.”
The two main parties had turned the by-election into a referendum on the Supreme Court’s decision on July 28 to bar Sharif from public office because he failed to disclose in his nomination papers that he had been employed by the Dubai company Capital FZE, opening the way for his prosecution on corruption charges.
The allegations against Sharif stem from the Panama Papers, documents leaked in 2016 from the law firm Mossack Fonseca. They suggest that Sharif’s family owns millions of dollars worth of property and companies around the world through offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands.
Last Friday, the court dismissed a petition from Sharif to reconsider its verdict and withdraw references to corruption.
Hussain, however, rejected suggestions that the furor influenced voting.
“It doesn’t have a major impact on election results,” he said. Both main parties used the Panama Papers verdict to mobilize public support, Hussain said. The PTI campaign centered on the corruption scandal to break the ruling party’s vote bank, while PML-N used it to win sympathy over Sharif’s disqualification, calling it an “insult to voters.”
The defeated candidate, Dr. Rashid, complained that an additional 29,000 voters had been registered without PTI having access to the list. She is likely to challenge the matter in court.
While Kulsoom Nawaz is in London being treated for throat cancer, her daughter Maryam conducted a vigorous campaign on her behalf. Addressing party supporters on Monday, she said her parents hand asked her to thank the people of the constituency.
“I congratulate you PML-N tigers,” she said. The tiger is the party’s political symbol.
“You took the brunt of the attack against Nawaz Sharif,” she said. “The forces which were surrounding Nawaz Sharif have been defeated.”
In a jab at the Supreme Court, she said the people had rejected a “court verdict based on injustice.”
“Your 60,000 votes equal six million votes and it was because of your love for Nawaz Sharif that these forces failed today. The decision of the people is that our prime minister is Nawaz Sharif.”