Daughter of ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, has hinted about running for prime minister ship in upcoming general election of 2018.
In an interview to New York Times, Maryam stated “People around me tell me I was meant for a certain role,” she said when asked whether she ever saw herself as a future prime minister.
She however hesitated answering the question about being prime minister ship directly saying it was her family’s decision that she take the party’s reins.
Until 2012, Ms. Sharif 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.
In a first for a family that has always maintained a united public front, Hamza Shehbaz admitted in a recent TV interview to political differences with Ms. Sharif and expressed hope that he would be able to bring Nawaz Sharif around to his point of view.
One of Nawaz Sharif’s closest aides, Riaz Pirzada, said in a news conference after the indictment last week that Shehbaz Sharif should take over the party until his elder brother is free of his legal troubles. Another close aide, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, has said he could not accept Ms. Sharif as a party leader, and he is no longer in the cabinet.
But Ms. Sharif insists that rumors of infighting are overblown.
“It’s not a divided house,” she said as she prepared to address polling agents in the heart of Lahore’s Old City. “The Sharif family takes a lot of pride in family values and the family ethos.”
About her uncle Shehbaz Sharif possibly becoming prime minister, she said: “He’s the most competent person. He’s my hero. I love him to death.”
She says it was her grandfather who first recognized her administrative and political potential and appointed her to important positions in the family’s operations. Over the years, she said, her father, too, came to appreciate her abilities. Today, she says, one of her most important skills is the capacity to convey advice and criticism to her father, a man who stubbornly refuses it from others, occasionally persuading him to change his mind.
Maryam Nawaz, however, later rejected the statement saying 'the family decided that I should be leading the party' is wrongly ascribed to me.
"There never has been such decision," she asserted.
The statement that 'the family decided that I should be leading the party' is wrongly ascribed to me. There never has been any such decision
— Maryam Nawaz Sharif (@MaryamNSharif) October 28, 2017
In series of tweets, she reiterated that Nawaz Sharif is and will be leading Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)
"I am happy to be working as a worker for the party," she said.
Nawaz Sharif is and Insha'Allah will be leading PMLN. I am not even an aspirant. Am happy to be working as PMLN worker.
— Maryam Nawaz Sharif (@MaryamNSharif) October 28, 2017
