‘Carve her own legacy’: Challenges ahead as Maryam Nawaz Sharif takes over reign of key Pakistani province 

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Updated 27 February 2024
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‘Carve her own legacy’: Challenges ahead as Maryam Nawaz Sharif takes over reign of key Pakistani province 

  • Maryam is fourth member of Sharif clan to become CM of Punjab, Pakistan’s politically most important province
  • 2024 general election was first time Maryam contested polls, has not held a prominent elected office before

ISLAMABAD: As Maryam Nawaz Sharif, daughter of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, made history this week by becoming the country’s first woman chief minister, political rivals decried nepotism while analysts said she had “her work cut out for her” governing the country’s most politically important province of Punjab. 

Maryam secured 220 votes in Monday’s election for the chief minister of Punjab, which accounts for 53 percent of Pakistan’s 241 million population and contributes 60 percent of its $350 billion GDP. Her opponent Rana Aftab Ahmad Khan could not secure a single vote as the opposition Sunni Ittehad Council party backed by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan boycotted the proceedings, saying the Feb. 8 general election was rigged. 

Elections earlier this month were the first time Maryam contested polls, representing her father’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). This is also the first time she will hold an elected public office, and that too in Punjab, the heartland of Pakistan military, political and industrial elite, a difficult terrain to manage even for the most experienced politicians. 

But Punjab is also the home province of the Sharif family, and Maryam is expected to have guidance from veterans in her family, not least her father, a three time former prime minister, and her uncle Shehbaz Sharif who has been Punjab CM multiple times in the past and is set to become prime minister for a second time this week. Her cousin Hamza Shehbaz, the younger Sharif’s son, has also served as CM of the province. 

Aftab, her opponent, said Maryam’s appointment was “yet another case of nepotism as her family is known for picking relatives and friends to top positions whenever it comes into power.”

But Maryam thanked God during the appointment ceremony and promised she would equally serve those who voted for her and those who didn’t. 

“The doors of my heart and office will remain open for the opposition as well,” she said.

Several commentators welcomed the appointment of a woman as CM, a significant milestone over seven decades after Pakistan’s creation. 

“We have the first woman chief minister of Punjab, which in itself is an achievement for someone who comes from a conservative family background and a male-dominated and traditional political party,” commentator Mehmal Sarfraz told Arab News. 

“There’s no doubt that being Nawaz Sharif’s daughter helped her but it can only help her so much. Now she has to prove her leadership skills, and carve out her own legacy.”

POLITICAL CAREER

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 2013 general elections, which the party won, propelling her father to the prime minister’s office for the third time.

After the elections, 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 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.

Maryam was herself convicted by an anti-graft court in 2018 and got seven years in jail in a corruption abetment case involving the purchase of high-end apartments in London. Her father was also sentenced to 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.

Maryam 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.

Maryam became increasingly involved in politics during her father’s four-year self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom and in 2019 was appointed vice president of the PML-N, leading significant anti-government rallies throughout the country and fiercely denouncing then-PM Khan, his PTI party and the military and judiciary for colluding to oust her father from the PM’s office.

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 Feb. 8 general elections, 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 has been through the grind and now coming to governance I think that she has come in prepared, which is evident from her speech,” journalist and talk show host Munizae Jahangir said. 

“She has already had her meetings with the bureaucrats and she has a work plan, a blueprint of a work plan of what she is going to do in the five years which she unveiled today.”

Among notable promises in her speech, Maryam 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 said women’s harassment was a “red line” and announced that a “special package” was in the works for the transgender community.

“Now whether she walks the talk is something that we will have to wait and see but by and large her speech has been extremely good,” Jahangir said. “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.”

Sarfraz agreed.

“Her roadmap seems like an ambitious plan so let’s see how she moves forward with it but 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,” the commentator said. 

“The best thing about her speech was that she made it a point to highlight that being a woman was a strength and not a weakness. She talked about her experience as a mother, daughter, working woman and how harassment is a red line for her. This needed to be said.”

Dismissing Maryam’s lack of parliamentary experience, Sarfraz said a lot of the criticism against the politician was gendered:

“She gets more hate because she is a woman who has an aggressive style of politics. We don’t talk much about this angle of how our sexist and misogynist society hates an ambitious, opinionated and strong woman.”

DYNASTIC POLITICS

Maryam’s appointment was largely expected following the Feb. 8 parliamentary elections in which her father’s PML-N emerged as the largest party in the National Assembly, or lower house of the parliament, and in the Punjab Assembly.

The PML-N, which was initially trailing candidates representing Khan’s supporters — the former cricket player turned politician was barred from running — emerged last Friday as the largest single winner in the election after receiving 24 additional seats — 20 from out of the 60 seats reserved for women, as well as four seats out of 10 reserved for minorities. Nine independent members have also joined the PML-N.

The party is now heading into a coalition with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of Nawaz, on a firm path to becoming the next prime minister, his second term in office. Khan’s party has rejected the election results, alleging widespread rigging. 

The Sharifs are one of the top two families that have dominated Pakistani politics for decades, the second being the Bhuttos of Sindh. 

“I have never thought that dynastic politics is a problem because I believe that whoever the voters want to vote for they should be allowed to, you can’t ban people just because they are somebody’s children or somebody’s father,” Jahangir said. 

“In this case it was very clear that she was a contender for the CM slot and I don’t think that she is that inexperienced … she had considerable experience in politics in opposition really and I think that opposition is when you really do have the tough time of doing politics in a place like Pakistan.”

But political analyst Dr. Huma Baqai said Maryam’s biggest challenge would be “credibility” and proving herself to the public.

“Political turmoil is not over in Pakistan. The fact that election results are not accepted on the ground by a huge section of the population will remain an issue [for Maryam]. There will be issues of credibility,” she said, describing the new CM’s roadmap as “the absolute pie in the sky promises of a person who does not have the experience.”

Dr. Hassan Askari, a longtime observer of Punjab politics, agreed that Maryam faced many challenges ahead. 

“She has presented a massive, a big-scale and very ambitious agenda,” the professor said. “That requires a lot of resources, virtually every aspect of administration has been covered. So, how do you mobilize resources for such an ambitious agenda?”

Jahangir, however, believed Maryam’s biggest challenge would be working with the all-powerful military, which has directly ruled Pakistan for almost half its history and is seen as the invisible guiding hand of politics even when not in power. 

In the run-up to elections too, widespread concerns were raised by independent analysts, activists and politicians of the military’s growing political power and its engineering of the pre-polling phase to keep Khan out of politics. The military denies it interferes in politics.

“I think the challenges for any politician in Pakistan is the military,” Jahangir said, “whether they will allow the politicians to run the province the way they want, whether they will be interfering in the running of the province. I think that is the real question.”


Pakistan PM congratulates Joseph Aoun on election as new Lebanon president

Updated 4 sec ago
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Pakistan PM congratulates Joseph Aoun on election as new Lebanon president

  • Aoun’s election came weeks after a ceasefire deal halted a 14-month conflict between Israel, Lebanese group Hezbollah
  • PM Shehbaz Sharif says Pakistan values its ties with Lebanon and looks forward to strengthen bilateral cooperation

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday congratulated Joseph Aoun for being elected as the new president of Lebanon, expressing Pakistan’s interest in strengthening bilateral cooperation between both countries.
Aoun’s election came weeks after a tenuous ceasefire agreement halted a 14-month conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and at a time when Lebanon’s leaders are seeking international assistance for reconstruction.
Aoun, no relation to former President Michel, was widely seen as the preferred candidate of the United States, whose assistance Lebanon will need as it seeks to rebuild.
In his message on X, Sharif wished Aoun success in his endeavors to lead Lebanon toward peace, stability and prosperity.
“Pakistan values its ties with Lebanon and looks forward to strengthen our bilateral cooperation,” the Pakistan prime minister said.
Pakistan and Lebanon share close relations. In December, Lebanon helped Islamabad safely evacuate around 300 Pakistani nationals stranded in Syria and transport them back home via chartered flights from Beirut.
Pakistan has also sent several relief consignments for the people of Lebanon during Israel’s bombardment of the Middle Eastern country.


Pakistan records 5.6% increase in remittances month on month

Updated 8 min 57 sec ago
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Pakistan records 5.6% increase in remittances month on month

  • Overseas workers remittances stood at $3.1 billion in the month of December
  • The inflows rose by 29.3 percent in 2024 as compared to the previous year

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan recorded a 5.6 percent increase in remittances in December on a month-on-month basis, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Friday, congratulating the nation on the record inflows.
Remittances bring billions of dollars annually from overseas Pakistanis and are vital to Pakistan’s economy. These inflows bolster foreign exchange reserves, stabilize the balance of payments, and support the Pakistani currency.
Overseas workers remittances stood at $3.1 billion in the month of December, according to a statement issued from Sharif’s office. The inflows rose by 29.3 percent in 2024 as compared to the previous year.
Sharif said the record increase in remittances was a testament to the determination of overseas Pakistanis to play their role in the development of the South Asian country.
“After economic stability, Pakistan has embarked on the path of economic development,” he said.
Pakistan narrowly avoided a sovereign default in 2023 by clinching a last-gasp $3 billion loan program from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The South Asian country has since made some economic gains, most notably slowing the annual consumer inflation to 4.1 percent in December. This was down from 38 percent in May 2023.
Pakistan’s government has vowed to undertake economic reforms mandated by the IMF which include tightening fiscal policies, privatizing loss-making state-owned enterprises and enhancing tax revenues.
“The government of Pakistan is committed to the country’s development and public welfare,” Sharif reassured in his statement.


Pakistan to launch pilot motorbike patrol for security of motorways

Updated 10 January 2025
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Pakistan to launch pilot motorbike patrol for security of motorways

  • Motorways in Pakistan have a dedicated police force, but various crimes, including rapes, have been reported in the past
  • Communications minister says 30-35 motorbikes will boost motorway security and improve response time in the first phase

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Communications Minister Abdul Aleem Khan has ordered the launch of a pilot motorbike patrol to enhance security of motorways in the country, Pakistani state media reported on Thursday.
Pakistan’s motorway network has improved road connectivity for the people and the government has deployed a dedicated motorway police force, installed CCTV cameras and established emergency response systems, but security concerns have persisted for travelers.
In 2020, the gangrape of a woman traveling from Lahore to Gujranwala via the M-11 motorway in front of her children sparked widespread outrage in the country, leading to calls for enhanced security measures. In 2023, a motorway police officer was also arrested on allegations of raping a woman on the highway, according to a report in Dawn newspaper.
“Federal Minister for Communications Abdul Aleem Khan has directed the motorways authority to launch a pilot motorbike service aimed at enhancing security and surveillance on motorways,” the Pakistan Television (PTV) broadcaster reported.
“The motorway police have been instructed to utilize existing resources to kick-start the service with plans for expansion in the future.”
Khan directed the motorway police to include 30-35 motorbikes for patrolling in the first phase to boost security measures and improve response times, according to the report.
The communications minister urged the National Highway Authority, Motorway Police, Frontier Works Organization, and local police to collaborate in securing the motorways.
“Motorway police must take maximum responsibility for ensuring the safety of citizens while a robust mechanism should be developed to make motorway travel as secure as possible,” he added.


OIC secretary-general arrives in Pakistan to attend summit on girls’ education in Muslim countries

Updated 10 January 2025
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OIC secretary-general arrives in Pakistan to attend summit on girls’ education in Muslim countries

  • Pakistan’s education ministry will host the global conference in Islamabad on January 11 and 12
  • The conference’s aim is to stress Islam’s message that both men, women have right to education

ISLAMABAD: Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Secretary-General Hissein Brahim Taha has arrived in Pakistan to attend a global conference on girls’ education in Muslim countries, according to the Pakistani education ministry.
Pakistan’s education ministry will host the global conference titled, “Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities: Challenges and Opportunities,” in Islamabad on Jan. 11-12.
Around 150 representatives from 47 countries, including education experts, religious scholars, diplomats, and politicians are expected to partake in the summit.
Pakistani Education Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui received the OIC secretary-general upon arrival in the South Asian country.
“Bringing together global leaders, educators, and changemakers to discuss innovative solutions and inspire progress for #GirlsEducation in Muslim communities,” the Pakistani education ministry said on Friday.
“This landmark event is a step toward creating opportunities, breaking barriers, and empowering future generations. Let’s ensure #EducationForAll and drive meaningful #GlobalConversations that transform lives!“
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will inaugurate the conference and deliver a keynote address at the opening session on Saturday. Pakistan’s foreign office said Sharif will reaffirm the nation’s commitment to promoting girls’ education and gender equality.
An “Islamabad Declaration” will be announced at the end of the conference on Sunday that would outline decisive steps to transform girls’ education in Islamic countries, according to Siddiqui.
On Thursday, Siddiqui said the primary aim of the conference is to stress the implementation of the Islamic message, which clearly states that both men and women have the right to education.
“By promoting girls’ education, we can build better homes, a better society and a stronger nation,” he said.
The Pakistani education minister hoped that Afghanistan would also join representatives from other Islamic countries and attend the conference in Islamabad.
“We have extended an invitation to Afghanistan to participate in this conference and hope that their delegation will attend as it is a very important neighboring country,” he told reporters at a media briefing in Islamabad.
Since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, at least 1.4 million Afghan girls have been denied access to secondary education, according to a report by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) released in August last year.
Siddiqui said everyone respects tribal customs and cultures, but all such practices must align with Islamic values in Muslim countries, adding that nothing holds precedence over them.
“In Islam, there is no justification for restricting women’s education,” he added.


PIA to resume European operations today with Paris flight after four-year suspension

Updated 53 min 45 sec ago
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PIA to resume European operations today with Paris flight after four-year suspension

  • PIA flights to Europe were suspended after an air crash in Karachi that killed 97 people in 2020
  • The resumption of flights to Europe will boost PIA’s revenue and improve privatization prospects

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is set to resume flights to Europe today, Friday, with the first flight scheduled to depart from Islamabad to Paris, the Pakistani national air carrier announced, following the removal of a four-year ban on its European operations.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) suspended PIA’s authorization to operate in the EU in June 2020 over concerns about the ability of Pakistani authorities and its Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) to ensure compliance with international aviation standards.

Passengers wait at the immigration counter before boarding their first flight to Paris at the Islamabad International Airport on January 10, 2025, as EU authorities lift a four-year ban. (AFP)

EASA and UK authorities suspended permission for PIA to operate in the region after Pakistan began investigating the validity of pilots’ licenses following a deadly plane crash that killed 97 people.
PIA said it was resuming two direct weekly flights to Paris and booking for the first two flights coming from and going to Paris had already been completed.
“The first flight will leave for Paris from Islamabad at 12:10pm today on January 10,” the airline said on Friday.

Passengers wait at the immigration counter before boarding their first flight to Paris at the Islamabad International Airport on January 10, 2025, as EU authorities lift a four-year ban. (AFP)

“PIA has also made special arrangements for in-flight entertainment through the Intranet Wireless Entertainment System.”
The suspension of European operations had exacerbated PIA’s financial woes, as the debt-ridden carrier struggled to recover from a tarnished reputation.

Passengers wait at the immigration counter before boarding their first flight to Paris at the Islamabad International Airport on January 10, 2025, as EU authorities lift a four-year ban. (AFP)

Last year, the government’s attempt to privatize the airline, part of a condition set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $7 billion loan, fell flat when it received only a single offer, well below its asking price.
The resumption of European flights is expected to boost PIA’s revenue stream and improve its appeal to potential investors, strengthening the government’s privatization efforts.