LAHORE: Federal Minister Mian Javed Latif says PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif will announce the date of his return to the country after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) releases the election schedule for the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa assemblies, which were dissolved last week.

Mr Latif recently returned from London after meeting the former prime minister, told the media at Model Town here on Sunday that “the PML-N’s supreme leader will announce the date of his homecoming soon after the ECP gives the polling schedule for Punjab and KP assemblies.”

Mr Sharif, the longest-serving prime minister, was serving a prison sentence in a corruption case when he went abroad on a court order in November 2019 to seek treatment for his illness.

The minister without portfolio asserted that the country would move forward only if the five characters, who had played a role in 2017 in the ouster of Mr Sharif (through the nefarious Panama case), were brought to justice. “Those who plundered the country between 2017 and Nov 23, 2022, need to be brought to the dock.”

He stated that exemplary punishment for those behind his character assassination would restore Nawaz Sharif’s faith (in the state’s institutions).

He claimed that despite numerous times giving up his political career for the good of the nation, Nawaz Sharif’s sacrifices were always in vain.

Referring to the ongoing economic meltdown of the country, he said: “We are going into elections amid innumerable crises, including the financial challenges facing the country.”

He said that PML-N Senior Vice-President Maryam Nawaz, who has been appointed as the chief organiser of the party, would return to the country on Jan 28.

The minister said that the coalition government of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) was trying to improve the economy and streamline the system for better governance. He said that the PML-N was taking tough decisions in the larger national interest at the cost of its own politics.

He claimed that his party had made unmatched sacrifices to protect the interests of the state and that it would never allow anyone to harm the country or its institutions. “The state was in trouble, and we offered our sacrifice to save it [from economic collapse].”

He said that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan was exploiting his supporters and wasting the time of the nation. He held him and his party responsible for the current economic crisis because, he added, the PTI government did nothing for the welfare of the people and the betterment of the country.

He claimed that Imran Khan’s poor policies harmed the national economy.

He claimed that if the PDM had not accepted the challenge of saving the country in April of last year, the PTI would not have been able to find even one candidate to run on its platform in the upcoming elections.

He stated that those who had launched Imran were still working to ensure his appointment on November 23, 2022 (a reference to former army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa, who retired in the last week of November).

The federal minister said that the solutions to all problems being faced by the country lay in following the Constitution and law.

He said the PML-N always has trust in the state institutions and had been objecting to only those people who were involved in ‘unconstitutional’ acts while sitting there.

“We have never targeted the establishment; rather, we have been pointing our fingers at the people sitting in the institutions.”

Published in Dawn, January 23th, 2023