LAHORE, Feb 11: Mian Nawaz Sharif will run for the third time for the office of prime minister, his Pakistan Muslim League-N declared here on Monday.

“Mian Sahib will be the party’s nominee for premier in case it gains a majority in the Feb 18 polls,” PML-N central leader Senator Ishaq Dar told a questioner at a press briefing held here for releasing a fact-sheet on alleged pre-poll rigging by the government for PML-Q candidates.

Mr Sharif is not contesting the polls as his nomination was rejected by a returning officer, a step termed part of a “master pre-poll rigging plan” by the party.

Mian Sahib has so far been saying that being twice elected prime minister he does not have the desire for the office and that he is now doing politics only for the cause of democracy, independent judiciary and free media.

Under the law, a prime minister-designate, if he happens not to be a member of the National Assembly, has six months to be elected to the house through a by-poll.

As Mr Dar explained the law, Mian Sahib smilingly suggested that the focus should be on ‘six months’, negating speculations that he may be making room for his younger brother and party president Shahbaz Sharif, who was also present at the briefing, for the coveted slot.

Observers say it also depicted his commitment to restoration of pre-emergency judiciary so that he may challenge the returning officer’s decision.

Mr Nawaz Sharif told a questioner that contesting the polls was part of the movement against the Musharraf regime currently launched by the All Parties Democratic Movement of which the PML-N was earlier a member.

“We want the movement (to be seen) in parliament as well as on roads which we consider necessary for the integrity of the country,” he said.

He ruled out boycotting the polls at any stage and despite all rigging fears.

Admitting that low turnout would benefit the government’s alleged rigging plan, he accused the interior ministry of frightening the masses by daily issuing hit lists of possible targets of terrorists.

He said after every 10 years the nation was made to start learning ABC of democracy but the lessons end at the GHQ instead of reaching the XYZ, an obvious reference to repeated army interventions.

He, however, said that his party and the whole nation would appreciate the army discharging its duties assigned to it in the Constitution.

Answering a question, he said the PML-N would join a coalition government if it accepted his party’s agenda of restoring the pre-emergency judiciary.

Earlier, he alleged that worried by Q League’s rapidly declining popularity graph President Musharraf had recently directed police and local government officials to massively rig the polls at all costs.

Needing validation of his “illegal” Nov 3, 2007 action by parliament, Musharraf could ill-afford defeat of his cronies, he added.

He said the fact-sheet listed personal experiences of PML-N ticket-holders and documented evidence and observations but regretted that the Election Commission had taken notice of only a few of the 1,654 rigging complaints so far lodged with it.

Explaining salient features of the fact-sheet, Ishaq Dar, who is heading the PML-N’s election monitoring cell, alleged that there were bogus entries in the voters’ list which, he said, could not be scrutinised for double entries because it was not in any data format.