Former Pakistan PM says ouster an ‘insult to voters’
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said the Supreme Court’s decision to depose him last month was a ‘joke’ and an insult to voters as he addressed a rally in Rawalpindi late Wednesday.
The speech marks the first time Sharif has publicly commented on the court’s ruling and comes as the former prime minister leads a defiant procession from Islamabad to his party’s stronghold in the eastern city of Lahore.
“I was not allowed to complete my third term,” he said from a bomb-proof vehicle specially designed for the journey.
“No prime minister in Pakistan has ever been allowed to complete his term. This joke has been repeated for 70 years and Pakistan can no longer bear it, it’s an insult to the voters,” he said.
Sharif asked thousands of supporters to stand up for the “rule of law” and the mandate they had given him.
The procession took 12 hours to travel just 20 kilometres from the capital to Rawalpindi. Sharif said he would stay the night there before continuing towards Lahore, where he hopes to bring tens of thousands into the streets in a show of force.
Thousands of police earlier sealed off main streets in Islamabad and surrounding areas as fears lingered over security after a truck bomb exploded in Lahore Monday, killing one person and injuring dozens.
Supporters clogged the streets in the capital, waving flags and chanting political slogans.
“The Supreme Court’ s judge ment to disqualify him is disputed, so people have not accepted it,” Sharif supporter Arshad Iftikhar, a retired government official, told AFP. Others lining the route voiced frustration with the political elite.
“Around 50 per cent of the people here are those who have just come to watch the scene,” said bystander Nazakat Ali.
“These politicians are not doing any good for the people.” Sharif was the 15th prime minister in Pakistan’s 70-year history — roughly half of which has been spent under military rule — to be ousted before completing a full term.
The top court sacked him last month after an investigation into corruption allegations against him and his family, bringing his historic third term in power to an unceremonious end and briefly plunging the nuclear-armed nation into political uncertainty. — AFP