Nawaz Sharif set to be made president of ruling PML-N party on May 28

Lahore, May 18 

Pakistan’s ruling PML-N party on Saturday decided to appoint three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif as its President on May 28 and nominated Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as the party’s acting president till then, media reports said here.

Shehbaz Sharif had, earlier this week, resigned from the same post citing the “unjust” disqualification of the party supremo and his elder brother Nawaz Sharif from PM Office stressing that it was time for the latter to “resume his rightful place as the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party.”

The decision was taken the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party’s central working committee meeting earlier in the day. It was also confirmed by the party’s Lahore chapter President Saif Ul Malook Khokhar, as reported.

The party’s general council meeting, previously scheduled for May 11, is slated to be held on May 28 on the occasion of “Youm-e-Takbeer,” it said, adding, “Nawaz is poised to retake the PML-N presidency.”

The February 8 general elections had delivered a fractured mandate and the PML-N did not get a clear majority. It joined hands with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) led by Bilawal Zardari Bhutto and other smaller parties to form the government at the federal level when Nawaz, 74, relinquished the post of prime minister in favour of 72-year-old Shehbaz.

Much before that, in 2017, Nawaz had stepped down as the country’s prime minister after the Supreme Court disqualified him for life from holding public office by the Supreme Court for not declaring a receivable salary.

Following his trial in the Panama Papers case, the apex court, in February 2018, disqualified the PML-N supremo as the party’s president.