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Maryam Nawaz Speech After Winning In NA 120 – 17th September 2017

Where logic fails

Asha’ar Rehman

The writer is Dawn’s resident in Lahore.

IT seems the people of Lahore have committed a huge sin for which they must now be taken to task
by their righteous advisers and those they have embarrassed at large. They have been found guilty
of electing a politician — his wife, an ailing lady with an ambitious daughter to be precise — who has
been disqualified by the court. Since the result of the ballot was announced late last Sunday, torrents
have been let loose on the electorate who, the unstoppable chest-thumping would suggest, failed to
rise to the occasion and were unable to seize a supposedly easy opportunity to reject a party and a
family which is under the hammer and gavel of late.

All kinds of names have been flying in the direction of a wayward and myopic and even dishonest lot
of voters who had the obsolete sense to elect Begum Kulsum Nawaz. They have been summarily
ordered to seek medical treatment for reposing their faith in a person who was so sick that she could
not even make a call in person to the people for votes, living up to her image as a mere puppet
candidate .

Sunday’s vote has been used as an example for asking how the people of the city could knowingly
choose what everyone around thought was bad for them. The guilty Lahoris are repeatedly reminded
by other Lahoris and people living near and far from the city what a great opportunity to cast off the
Sharif yoke they have wasted in NA-120 on the fateful day of Sept 17, 2017.

That may be a fair observation on the part of those who have great hopes about reformation especially
in the wake of the disqualification ruling but it would help our vision if we clarified a few things here.
We could please recall exactly what kind of talk the people of this city had been mostly subjected to
before this election.

The guilty Lahoris are reminded by other Lahoris and people
living near and far from the city what a great opportunity to cast
off the Sharif yoke they have wasted.

The Lahore which regularly emerges in envious accounts in recent years — even in recent decades —
is a dream town lavished with all kinds of privileges from roads to subsidised travel by metro bus to
a life supervised by an administration that is more willing if not more capable than others around. It
doesn’t exactly have streams of milk and honey running through its streets but still boasts of an
infrastructure that is open for passage and encourages some kind of mobility.

The things on display have been improving, according to the verdict of the people who live here and
those who have observed its growth from a distance. There has been criticism but, by and large, the
feeling among the people here has been distinctly different from so many other Pakistani towns
whose inhabitants have constantly complained of having been ignored if not totally abandoned by
their leaders. So much so that it is said that the talk about just how huge a price the city’s tradition
has had to pay for its, however selective, modernisation has been dismissed by the interested
majority with a wave of the hand that signifies at least the inevitability of progress.

And guess who is responsible for all these developments in Lahore even if allegedly at the cost of
others? Obviously, the same party and the same family the Lahoris are being blatantly shamed for
electing yet one more time. It is not a very complicated question to answer. Why is it so difficult for
‘independent’ observers to understand, by their own logic, as to why people here voted for the Sharifs?
True, it is a habit developed over time, one which is not easy to give up, not even with the intense
advice and taunts heaped on a so-called selfish city. Nonetheless, it is a habit built upon and sustained
by a party and a family that is genuinely believed by so many here to have done some positive work.
Far from the thought of playing some kind of pioneering role in progress of reform, of greater concern
to many would be the thought about a future where they would be forced to do without a Sharif. It is
a tradition that will take time to fade, if this is what has been written by fate.

The maligning of the city of Lahore is even more incredible given the fact that the Sept 17 by-election
didn’t have any drastic impact on the equation that already existed — meaning that it in no way was a
discouragement to the PTI. It more or less maintained the 2013 position, if the analysis was to be
based on the PTI’s own premise.

Apart from PTI supporters who have been all along campaigning against rigging in the general election
held four and a half years ago, even some independent observers would recall that the scene during
the Sept 17 polling appeared so much like that of May 11, 2013. Even then it looked as close as it does
this time around, only the numbers announced on the eve of May 11, 2013 left many wondering. The
margin this time is closer to survey-based estimates of the relative strength of the PML-N and PTI. The
90,000 vs 50,000 margin was a little hard to believe.

Finally, the PTI could put this down to a vote tilted in favour of the PML-N more with an eye on the past
rather than one on the future: a candidate elected for a few months as opposed to an election for a
term of five years. The PTI has proved it has the numbers to challenge the PML-N despite all pre-vote
projections.

The general election in 2018 could provide people with a new perspective on things. It is up to the
challengers to decide how they go about their conquest of Lahore. Will they offer the city a package
better than the Sharifs or will they lobby in the name of sacrifice and equality in a city in the habit of
being treated royally?

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2017

LHC rejects contempt of court petition against Maryam
Nawaz

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday rejected a contempt of court petition against Maryam Nawaz, daughter
of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

The petition was filed by a citizen, Sadruddin, in which he had stated that Maryam, in her recent
speeches made during a campaign for the NA-120 by-election criticised the Supreme Court’s July
28 judgment.

LHC’s Justice Shahid Kareem, hearing the case on Tuesday, reserved his decision on the maintain-
ability of the petition. Maryam had campaigned of the by-election for her mother Kulsoom Nawaz.

Earlier, responding to a tweet of journalist Iftikhar Ahmed, who asked, "will Nawaz Sharif appear
before National Accountability Bureau (NAB) court?", Maryam said, "He should not. Must not [...]
It's a farce."

Source:The Nation, September 20, 2017