Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has been elected unopposed as the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), party sources confirmed.
The party's chief election commissioner, Rana Sanaullah, released the final list of candidates, revealing that Nawaz Sharif was the sole contender for the party's top post. As a result, Sharif’s election as president of the PML-N is now a formality, pending official announcement and ratification by the party's General Council.
The official declaration of Nawaz Sharif’s election will be made during the upcoming General Council meeting of the PML-N set to be held shortly. Party sources indicated that members of the council would ratify his nomination through a show of hands.
It should be noted that Nawaz Sharif was removed from the post of party president in 2018 after a Supreme Court bench ruled that a person disqualified under articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution could not be the head of a political party. Just a few months before the verdict, the Supreme Court had disqualified Nawaz for life in corruption cases related to the Panama Papers.
It should be noted that last month, a resolution was passed by members of the PML-N Punjab regarding Nawaz Sharif taking over the leadership of the party once again, in which it was said that since Nawaz Sharif had been acquitted of charges in corruption cases.
He had been disqualified by the Supreme Court in 2017 through a conspiracy, the resolution stated, while now was the time for him to take over the presidency of the party again and take the PML-N to new heights.
In addition to the acquittals by the Islamabad High Court in the corruption cases (Avenfield and Al-Azizia), in January the Supreme Court annulled the lifetime disqualification of parliamentarians under Article 62-1F, after which Nawaz Sharif was re-elected. All obstacles to becoming party president were removed.
