The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Pakistan prime minister toppled by corruption case
Removal is likely to shift country’s political balance.
ISLAMABAD — Nawaz Sharif stepped down as Pakistan’s prime minister Friday, after the Supreme Court ordered his removal over accusations of corruption in a ruling that is likely to shift the country’s tumultuous political balance.
The ousting of Sharif, who was serving his third term in office, came roughly a year before his term was to end. And it deals a serious blow to the legacy of a man who helped define the past generation of Pakistani politics.
The governing political party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, must now choose an interim prime minister to replace Sharif until the next general election, which is scheduled for mid-2018.
Announced by the five-member Supreme Court, the verdict caps more than a year of high political drama, breathless court proceedings and a piercing investigation into the finances of the Sharif family.
Watching the courtroom drama was the country’s powerful military. There had been hushed speculation that the court, in coming to its decision, had the tacit, if not overt, backing of powerful generals.
The charges against Sharif, 67, and three of his children — two sons and a daughter — stemmed from disclosures last year in the Panama Papers. Those documents revealed that the children owned expensive residential property in London through offshore companies.
In their unanimous verdict Friday, the justices declared that Sharif was not “honest” and that he was therefore “disqualified to be a member of the parliament.” They also ordered the opening of criminal investigations focusing on the Sharif family. Imran Khan, the opposition politician who has been spearheading the campaign against Sharif since he took power in 2013, stands to gain the most politically from the prime minister’s removal. Khan has arallied a wide swath of the public against Sharif through a mix of street agitation and court petitions.