KARACHI: Days after the revelation that senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and former Sindh governor Mohammad Zubair had twice reached out to the army chief, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has appointed him his and his daughter’s spokesperson. Soon after assuming his new role, the former governor vowed to continue his party’s struggle until the fall of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government.

In a statement posted on PML-N’s Twitter account, party spokeswoman Marriyum Aurangzeb said that a spokespersons’ committee would also be formed under the guidance of the party’s primary spokesperson and central information secretary.

“Former Sindh governor Mohammad Zubair has been tasked with responsibility of being Quaid Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz’s [spokesman],” she said. “Mr Zubair would meet responsibilities as the spokesperson for both. A spokespersons’ committee would also be formed under the guidance of the party’s primary spokesperson and central information secretary. Dr Mussadiq Malik, Mohsin Shahnawaz Ranjha, Talal Chaudhry, Uzma Bukhari and Ataullah Tarar would be part of the committee.”

Hours after this announcement, Mr Zubair spoke at a press conference here at the Karachi Press Club in his new capacity and lashed out at a PTI minister who had alleged that Nawaz Sharif was targeting the establishment because of his close and personal ties with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his business partnership with Sajjan Jindal.

The PML-N leader vows to continue struggle to bring down PTI govt

Mr Sharif, he claimed, was enjoying support in Pakistan and his popularity was on the rise for the last two years and that fast developing political scene had left the PTI government in a panic which led to such “ridiculous statements”.

He said that the PML-N did not need to look anywhere for support as it enjoyed “massive” public support.

“The people of Pakistan are not satisfied with this government and every independent survey and report endorses this fact. We should not be told whom Nawaz Sharif had met, this is utter lies and we condemn this. This shows that the opponents of Nawaz Sharif have lost arguments and logic and are left only with lies and propaganda,” he said.

Last month, the military establishment made a startling revelation that further jolted the anti-establishment image of the PML-N that Mr Zubair had twice reached out to Chief of the Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and discussed political and legal woes of deposed prime minister Sharif and Maryam Nawaz.

“Mr Zubair twice met the army chief, once in the last week of August and then on September 7 in the presence of the director general of ISI,” revealed military spokesman Major General Babar Iftikhar in a TV talk show. Both meetings, he said, were held on Mr Zubair’s request.

“In those meetings he [Mr Zubair] talked about Mr Nawaz Sharif and Ms Maryam Nawaz,” the director-general of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) had disclosed after PML-N’s senior vice-president and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had told a news conference in Lahore that none of the party members had held one-on-one meeting with the army chief in the recent past.

The episode had not only created quite a stir in the political scene but also offered a fresh opportunity to the ruling PTI to launch an assault against the PML-N leadership, which it said was still looking for discount from the military establishment and only had decided to target the national institutions after failing to get any positive response.

The situation pushed the PML-N supremo to announce that no one from his party would hold individual, private or delegation-level meetings with the country’s military leadership.

If necessitated by national security or constitutional requirements, such meetings in the future will be approved by the party’s leadership and will be made public, he wrote on his personal Twitter account.

Mr Zubair reiterated his leader’s narrative and said the fate of the PTI government would now be decided by the people in the streets.

“We believe in people’s power only,” he said. “You would find us only in the court of people and justice. We would exercise every constitutional, legal and democratic right while launching a protest movement. You would find us on roads and streets. This would end only when we bring down this government.”

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2020