{"id":1479,"date":"2018-02-27T18:08:46","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T18:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/?p=1479"},"modified":"2018-02-27T18:08:46","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T18:08:46","slug":"pakistan-court-bans-nawaz-sharif-from-leading-his-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/2018\/02\/27\/pakistan-court-bans-nawaz-sharif-from-leading-his-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan court bans Nawaz Sharif from leading his party"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pakistan\u2019s supreme court has barred\u00a0Nawaz Sharif<\/a>\u00a0from his position as president of the country\u2019s ruling party, ordering the reversal of all decisions he has taken in the role, in a move that plunges the country\u2019s politics into fresh uncertainty.<\/p>\n

The former prime minister, who was sacked by the supreme court last year, had managed to retain power by driving through a law that allowed disqualified politicians to lead political parties.<\/p>\n

Twice-deposed in coups during the 1990s, the 68-year-old has long claimed his most recent eviction as prime minister is the result of a shadowy, anti-democratic conspiracy concocted between the judiciary and \u2013 behind the scenes \u2013 the army.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is only going to add to the wave of support for the PML-N [Sharif\u2019s party],\u201d Daniyal Aziz, a cabinet minister, told the Guardian. \u201cThe public think the party is being victimised.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was not unexpected that the supreme court would debar Sharif as party head. The same five judges originally ordered his dismissal as prime minister on the grounds that, in failing to declare a foreign bank account, he fell short of the vague constitutional requirement that politicians be \u201chonest\u201d and \u201crighteous\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Nawaz<\/div>\n
Facebook<\/span><\/a>Twitter<\/span><\/a>Pinterest<\/span><\/a><\/div>
\u00a0<\/span>Nawaz Sharif in 2017. Photograph: Faisal Mahmood\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But the verdict goes further. In a five-page judgement, the chief justice, Saqib Nisar, ruled that all \u201corders passed, directions given and documents issued\u201d by him as party chairman since then \u201chave never been passed, issued or given.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
Advertisement<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Most immediately, this nullifies all of the tickets given out by Mr Sharif to PML-N candidates for senate elections, on which his career partly hinges. If the party win enough seats to cobble together a majority in the 102-seat senate, Sharif would be able to remove the clause in the constitution which prevents his return as prime minister.<\/p>\n

The Election Commission of\u00a0Pakistan<\/a>\u00a0is expected to delay the vote planned for 3 March. This will give time for a new PML-N head to reappoint the party\u2019s candidates.<\/p>\n

The most likely replacement for Sharif as PML-N chief is his wife, Kusloom, who is currently undergoing treatment for cancer in London, analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi told the Guardian. \u201cThrough his wife,\u201d Rizvi said, \u201cMr Sharif would still be able to control the party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if a shortly expected verdict in Sharif\u2019s trial on corruption charges linked to the\u00a0Panama Papers<\/a>\u00a0delivers a guilty verdict, the party appears unlikely to slip from his grasp. A surprise byelection victory earlier this month in a stronghold of the major opposition party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has quietened rumours of a split.<\/p>\n

And the victimhood narrative binds the party together, said the columnist Mosharraf Zaidi. \u201cNobody would want to seem to be abandoning him at this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics accuse the Sharif family of maligning Pakistan\u2019s institutions in an attempt to save his political career. He \u201cshould accept the decision rather than planning new conspiracies\u201d, said a spokesman for PTI.<\/p>\n

As Sharif fights on \u201cconfrontation in the system will increase, and uncertainty will increase,\u201d said Rizvi, \u201cwhich could mean problems for democracy as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pakistan\u2019s supreme court has barred\u00a0Nawaz Sharif\u00a0from his position as president of the country\u2019s ruling party, ordering the reversal of all decisions he has taken in the role, in a move that plunges the country\u2019s politics into fresh uncertainty. The former prime minister, who was sacked by the supreme court last year, had managed to retain power by driving through a… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1480,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479\/revisions\/1480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}