‘The time to decide is now’: Maryam Nawaz seeks nation’s support to oust PM Imran Khan

Faisalabad (HRNW) PML-N Vice-President Maryam Nawaz on Saturday told the nation that the time to decide for them to decide their future and to change their fate is now, as she sought their support to oust Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Addressing a Pakistan Democratic Movement’s (PDM) rally in Faisalabad’s Dhobi Ghat ground, Maryam said the people were fully aware of how PM Imran Khan had “disrespected the vote’s sanctity”.

The PML-N vice-president said the prime minister had fulfilled only one promise that he would “make everyone cry” and today, “the entire nation is crying”.

Maryam spoke of PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif, who is in London and has been declared an absconder by Pakistani courts, saying that he has “left everything in the hands of God”.

“When a person leaves their matters to God […] no matter how powerful one is, or how they say they are on ‘one page’ [with others], historic defeat, historic humiliation, historic disgrace becomes the fate of the oppressive,” she said.

“So tell me now. Has God not made Nawaz Sharif’s opponents a warning to all?”

A grim-faced Maryam at one point asked the organisers to turn down the music.

“Nawaz Sharif called me and told me to express his grief on his behalf […] whenever the people are in trouble, Nawaz cries tears of blood,” Maryam said.

Slamming the prime minister over the power crisis, she said the country faces a shortage of electricity in the summer and a shortage of gas in the winter.

Maryam said the country was experiencing a power shortage as the government had purchased expensive LNG.

The PML-N leader claimed PM Imran Khan used the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for political revenge, and when it was time for his own accountability, he amended the law.

Maryam said PM Imran Khan’s party — PTI — has ranked “number 1” in the recently leaked Pandora Papers. “The nation was told Imran Khan’s name isn’t included in the list […] have you ever heard that the leader of a pack of thieves was an honest person?” she asked.

“You cannot save yourself from accountability,” Maryam told the premier.

She recalled how once PM Imran Khan had remarked that when wheat flour becomes expensive, it is a sign the country’s ruler is “corrupt”.

The PML-N leader then had a party worker open up a banner that read that when the prices of electricity and petrol increase, “it means the prime minister is a thief”.

Maryam said that it was said of Nawaz Sharif that he reads from a paper when delivering an address in front of foreigners. “But look at him (PM Imran Khan). Even while reading out from a paper, he makes mistakes.”

She said that in Nawaz’s time investment was booming and projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor was progressing rapidly.

Speaking of foreign policy matters, Maryam said that things are dismal on that front as well with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “not answering” the prime minister’s call, while US President Joe Biden has not even called the premier yet.

“People on American television channels remark that Imran Khan’s real authority is no greater than that of the Islamabad mayor,” she said.

Venturing back into the territory of Nawaz’s rule, she said that “whenever he took a stand, it was for the people of Pakistan”.

“The government will fall flat on its face and we can already see it is about to do so,” she said.

She said PM Imran Khan would be well advised to not try and be a “political martyr”.

Hailing Nawaz’s political foresight, she said that the former prime minister had remarked four years ago that “Imran Khan is one who bites the hand that feeds it”.

“Today, the ones who were keeping him fed have learnt a lesson the likes of which cannot fully be expressed in words,” she remarked.