11th August, 2017
The wife of ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will contest a special election for the parliamentary seat he was forced to vacate in July after the Supreme Court disqualified him from holding office, a Sharif adviser said on Friday.
Papers for Kulsoom Nawaz’s candidacy were filed with election authorities on Friday, Sharif adviser Asif Kirmani told reporters in the eastern city of Lahore.
The special election is to be held in about 45 days.
A senior leader of ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), said on Thursday indicated that the party may field Kulsoom or Shariff’s daughter Maryam to fill the vacant seat.
Initially, the PML-N had decided that Sharif’s younger brother Shehbaz Sharif would contest election from NA-120 in Lahore, vacated by Sharif so that he could be appointed as prime minister.
The PML-N leader, on condition of anonymity, said that the party has a lot of respect for Kulsoom as she is the symbol of courage for many party members who remember the time when she led the party after Sharif was imprisoned by former military dictator Pervez Musharraf following the 1999 coup.
Maryam is the second choice and would be acceptable to the party as her father was grooming her for a role in politics.
He said that the final decision would be taken by Sharif in coming days.
The PML-N main rival Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has already announced the name of Yasmin Rashid for the seat. Sharif had defeated Rashid with a huge margin in 2013.