THE Sharifs and the Bhuttos have long been dominant forces in Pakistani politics. Recently, Maryam Nawaz Sharif made history as Pakistan’s first female chief minister, securing 220 votes in Punjab, the country’s most populous province, and a major contributor to its GDP. With a legacy of political experience in her family, including her father’s three terms as prime minister and her uncle’s previous leadership in Punjab, Maryam is poised to lead with guidance from seasoned veterans. However, her appointment has sparked a debate about nepotism, while analysts anticipate that she will have her work cut out for her in her new role.
This is the first time she will hold an elected public office. Punjab, the heartland of Pakistan military, political and industrial elite, a difficult terrain to manage even for the most experienced politicians. It is being said by many that Maryam’s CM-ship is another case of nepotism as her family is known for picking relatives and friends to top positions whenever it comes into power. Prior to entering politics, Maryam was involved with the Sharif family’s philanthropic organizations and served as the chairperson of the Sharif Trust, Sharif Medical City and Sharif Education Institutes. She formally joined politics in 2012 when she was put in charge of the PML-N’s election campaign ahead of the 2013 general election which the party won, propelling her father to the prime minister’s office for the third time.
Punjab is experiencing the first woman chief minister, which is an achievement for someone who comes from a conservative family background and a male-dominated and traditional political party. She will have to prove her leadership skills and carve out her own legacy. Maryam has promised that she would equally serve those who voted for her and those who didn’t. It will be an excellent gesture if her office remains open for the opposition as well. Appointment of a woman as CM is a significant milestone over seven decades after Pakistan’s creation. Post elections-2013, she was appointed the Chairperson of the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme, a position from which she resigned in 2014 after her appointment was criticized by political rival Imran Khan over nepotism and her university degree was challenged in the Lahore High Court. She was convicted by an anti-graft court in 2018 and got seven years in jail in a corruption abetment case involving the purchase of high value apartments in London. Her father was also sentenced for 10 years in prison in the case for not being able to disclose a known source of income for buying the properties. She was also disqualified from contesting in 2018 elections as convicted felons cannot run for office under Pakistani law. She became more politically active in 2017 after her father was disqualified from the PM’s office and convicted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in relation to corruption revelations in the Panama Papers. She campaigned for her mother, Kulsoom Nawaz, during by-elections for Sharif’s vacant seat in the NA-120 constituency in Lahore.
She was acquitted in the case in September 2022, months after Imran Khan was ousted from the PM’s office in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence and her uncle Shehbaz Sharif became premier. On 3 January 2023, Maryam was appointed Senior Vice President of the PML-N, making her one of the party’s most senior leaders. She ran for two seats in the February 8 general election, for the National Assembly seat from NA-119 Lahore-III and for a seat of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab from PP-159 Lahore-XV. She won both seats and was nominated by her party as the candidate for Punjab CM. She became increasingly involved in politics during her father’s four-year self-imposed exile in the UK. In 2019, she was appointed Vice President of the PML-N, leading significant anti-government rallies throughout the country and fiercely denouncing the then-PM Imran Khan, PTI, military and judiciary for colluding to oust her father from the PM’s office. She has been through the grind and is now stepping into governance. I think she is well-prepared, as evident from her speech. She has already held meetings with bureaucrats, with blueprint of a work plan of what she is going to do in the next five years.
She vowed to transform Punjab into an economic hub, work on youth upliftment, launch free ambulances and medicine delivery, ensure school transport and make women’s safety, education and employment a priority. She declared women’s harassment was a red line and announced that a special package was in the works for the transgender community. Her roadmap seems an ambitious plan so let’s see how she moves forward with it. It was Good to See for a change that there was talk of reconciliation and not revenge which has become a norm in our politics. She has touched upon all the issues that plague not just Punjab but also Pakistan and seems to have her work cut out for her.
—The writer is editor, book ambassador political analyst and author of several books based in Islamabad.
Email: [email protected]
views expressed are writer’s own.
