ISLMABAD: After Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s arrival in Pakistan from London, opposition parties have once again started consultation process on the issues of Panama leaks and appointments of members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
A meeting of the joint opposition is expected to take place within next few days. Earlier today, Opposition Leader Syed Khurshid Shah held a telephonic conversation with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Vice President Shah Mehmood Qureshi. Both leaders will also hold meeting.
On the other hand, Awami Muslim League (AML) and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) leaders also discussed strategy regarding protest movement against the PML-N government. PTI will arrange a meeting in Lahore today where Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Jahangir Tareen and other senior leaders are expected to be present.
PM Nawaz returned home from London on Saturday after undergoing successful open heart surgery in the British capital. Sharif, whose operation was carried out in the last week of May, remained in the UK for more than six weeks. It was the PM’s second major cardiac medical procedure in five years.
A close aide of the Sharif family Khawaja Ahmad Hassan said “the PM is healthy,” and that “the entire family and the party workers are happy about his return”. Nawaz Sharif left the country shortly after the so-called Panama Papers linked his family to a series of offshore companies.
The prime minister insists his family has done “nothing wrong”, saying the claims had been investigated twice, decades ago, under the tenure of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf. But the opposition has demanded his resignation after the leaked papers claimed his children owned London property through an offshore company.
Sharif’s daughter Maryam Nawaz Sharif had earlier tweeted to her almost two million followers that the surgery had been successful. Nawaz Sharif took power in a landslide May 2013 general election, for the third time since 1990. He has a power base rooted in Pakistan’s richest and most populous province, where he is known as the ‘Lion of the Punjab’.
