In 2018, with its chief Nawaz Sharif and daughter Maryam Nawaz incarcerated, some had thought that the PML-N’s best days were behind it and electoral success would now prove evasive.

Five years later, the party has turned the game on its head, and is back in favour with the powers that be, while its biggest rival (PTI’s Imran) is not only personally out of the electoral arena, his party is now fighting for mere survival.

Ousting Imran and what came after it may have admittedly made the PML-N somewhat unpopular, but the party, from a leadership point of view, is back to full strength and is expected to be a major player in the 2024 general elections on Feb 8.

Party’s origin

Nawaz began his political career in 1976 by joining the Pakistan Muslim League, which had a strong footing in Punjab. It was a period when many industries, including the Sharif’s own steel business, were being nationalised by the then prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

“The Sharif family is a patriarchal and conservative family. They came to industry in the 1930s, at a time when hardly a few Muslim families had a name in the industry,” according to senior analyst Nusrat Javed.

“By the time 1947 happened, they became prominent. As far as old Lahore is concerned, even in 1947, they were a recognised rich family who were considered industrialists,” Javed is quoted as saying by Dawn in a 2018 piece.

“When their industry was nationalised by Bhutto, the family took it very seriously,” Javed said. “They began to think of having a spot in politics. They held a grudge against Bhutto. It may sound cynical, but Nawaz’s father pushed him to politics because he didn’t think he would do business,” he added.

Nawaz was first a part of the Punjab cabinet as finance minister during General Zia’s regime and in 1981, he joined the Punjab Advisory Board.

He was elected as chief minister Punjab in 1985 and was re-elected after the end of martial law in 1988. After the death of Gen Ziaul Haq in August 1988, the Pakistan Muslim League split into two factions, with Sharif taking charge of PML, which later came to be known as PML-N.

Rise to premiership and tumultuous journey since

Through 1990, Nawaz campaigned for the general election as chief of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) — an alliance of right wing parties against the PPP. Nawaz was first elected as Pakistan’s prime minister on November 1, 1990.

However, his first term of the three terms as the premier came to an abrupt halt, when president Ghulam Ishaq Khan dissolved the National Assembly in April 1993 over corruption allegations.

Nawaz’s second term as the prime minister came in 1997 when the PML-N won the general elections by a landslide. During his second term, he continued to be at loggerheads with the judiciary and in November 1997, during a hearing, a large number of his supporters stormed the Supreme Court building to disrupt proceedings.

In this period of turmoil, Nawaz forced president Farooq Leghari to resign and chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah was ousted.

In 1999, as the situation in Kargil escalated, Nawaz’s relationship with the military turned sour. He maintained that he had not been informed of the planned attacks in Kargil and that the then army chief Pervez Musharraf acted alone.

The situation worsened, when in October 1999 Nawaz attempted to remove Musharraf, who was denied landing rights at Karachi airport after PM Nawaz ordered it shut, fearing a coup.

However, the plane carrying Musharraf ultimately landed in Karachi once the Army, upon earlier instructions, seized power.

After the coup, Nawaz was tried in an Anti Terrorism Court for “kidnapping, attempted murder, hijacking, terrorism and corruption” and was handed a life sentence.

Later under an agreement facilitated by Saudi Arabia, Nawaz was exiled from the country for the next 10 years.

In 2002 elections, the PML-N managed to win only a handful of seats as most leaders left it for greener pastures while others remained in jail. Four years later, the party signed the Charter of Democracy with the PPP in London.

The document signalled an alliance between the two parties to bring an end to Musharraf’s military rule and establish a democratic government in Pakistan.

By 2008, the PML-N had managed to re-emerge as the second-largest party, trailing only the PPP. In an unusual turn of events, it chose to sit on the treasury benches and even joined the cabinet alongside its former fierce political rival. However, this alliance was short-lived, leading the PML-N back to the opposition benches.

In the 2013 elections, the party saw off the challenges of arch-rival PPP as well as rowdy newcomers PTI to become the single largest party in the country, recapturing power after 14 years.

Following its victory, the party faced severe criticism from Imran Khan-led PTI, which accused it of rigging the polls. The PTI even staged a 126-day-long protest in Islamabad and finally agreed upon a judicial commission to investigate the issue after the sit-in was called off following an attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar. The judicial commission found no evidence of systematic rigging in the 2013 polls.

The party encountered its most challenging period in 2017 when Nawaz’s third term in power also came to an abrupt conclusion, approximately a year before the next general elections. This time, it was the Supreme Court that disqualified him from holding a public office in the Panama Papers case on corruption charges.

On July 6, 2017, months after his disqualification, Nawaz was also found guilty in the Avenfield corruption reference and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was in London when the judgment was announced. On July 13, he came back to Lahore, but was quickly flown to Islamabad and then transported to Rawalpindi’s Adiala prison.

In Nov 2019, Nawaz left for London on medical grounds but would not return for the next four years. Back home, the rest of the party leadership faced the legal challenges created under the PTI government with several of its senior members spending time in detention.

In September 2020, the PML-N and other opposition parties joined hands to form the Pakistan Democratic Alliance (PDM) in order to topple the PTI government.

In April 2022, the PDM’s efforts bore fruit as it successfully moved a no-confidence motion against Imran, leading to his ouster from the top office. Subsequently, Shehbaz Sharif was elected the new prime minister, and he governed for approximately 16 months, before handing over the reins to a caretaker government. However, the PDM’s tenure did not bring any relief to the public in terms of alleviating inflation or fostering overall progress.

In October 2023, two months after the PDM government concluded, Nawaz returned to the country. In no time, he was cleared in two significant cases — the Avenfield reference and the Al-Azizia reference.

Any residual concerns about Nawaz’s eligibility for the upcoming elections were eliminated when, in January 2024, the top court nullified the lifetime disqualification for lawmakers under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution, which cleared him to participate freely in the electoral process.