Maryam Nawaz says not even an aspirant to lead PML-N

LAHORE (NNI): Ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s daughter Maryam Nawaz on Saturday has clarified the statement ‘family decided that I should be leading the party is wrongly ascribed to her as there was no such decision.

According to the interview published in New York Times, Maryam Nawaz hesitated to directly address whether she had ambitions to become prime minister, saying it was her family’s decision that she take the party’s reins.

Maryam Nawaz took to Twitter and elucidated that Nawaz Sharif is and will be leading Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and that she is not even an aspirant and happy to be working as PML-N worker.

In the interview, Maryam Nawaz also said that the proof to send her to prison is “missing” and that the victory in the September by-election was evidence that people still stand by her and her party.

“Prisons, disqualifications, sham trials, house arrests, court cases been there, done that,” she added.

Until 2012, she had quietly managed the family’s philanthropic Sharif Trust, rising to political prominence only when she helped run her father’s re-election campaign in 2013. Since then, she has managed to sideline her cousin Hamza Shehbaz, long considered a potential standard-bearer, who is now conspicuous by his absence from rallies and party meetings.

Talking about her uncle Shehbaz Sharif, who is a three-time chief minister of Punjab, Maryam said: “He’s the most competent person. He’s my hero. I love him to death.”

“I don’t know what tomorrow holds,” she said. “But I think I owe it to the people. I need to reach out to them.”

Maryam Nawaz said that her uncle Shehbaz Sharif was her hero and she loved him immensely.

When asked to comment about her uncle Shehbaz Sharif becoming the prime minister of the country, Maryam said that he was the ‘most competent person’ and that she ‘loved him to death’.

Maryam dismissed the cases against herself, her husband Captain (r) Safdar and father Nawaz Sharif. According to her, the cases were politically motivated and blatant victimization.

“The cases are politically motivated and nothing more than blatant political victimization and pressure tactics,” she said. “People remain undeterred, and support for the Pakistan Muslim League has further galvanized.”

She also spoke of how the Sharif family and PML-N had withstood hardships that included incarceration and exile. “Prisons, disqualifications, sham trials, house arrests, court cases — been there, done that,” she said. “I am undeterred, unperturbed, fighting,” she added.