LAHORE: PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday lashed out at judges for legitimising military dictators and taking action against elected prime ministers.

“Judges garland the ones (military dictators) who break the Constitution, rather they legitimise their rule. When the parliament is dissolved and the prime minister is sent to jail, they (judges) endorse these actions,” Mr Sharif said while addressing the ticket aspirants from Faisalabad at the party secretariat in Model Town.

Nawaz said the judges allowed the military dictator to amend the constitution. “These are the reasons for the situation we are in today. No one else but we are responsible for this. Neither India nor the United States and Afghanistan are behind Pakistan’s miseries,” he said.

The elder Sharif also indirectly talked about former ISI chief Gen Faiz Hamid for what he said, pressuring a judge not to give post-arrest bail to him and his daughter Maryam Nawaz as their two-year ‘hard work’ would go waste.

Targeting PTI supremo Imran Khan, Nawaz said he (Khan) never tired of saying that green passport’s respect would be ensured and New Pakistan be built.

“But despite all his tall claims, it (PTI) could not win the 2018 polls and rigging was done through RTS to make the selected person PM. He was made premier with a margin of four votes and to arrange these helicopters and planes were used (to transport the parliamentarians),” the elder Sharif said in reference to sugar baron Jahangir Khan Tareen whom the PML-N used to lambast for using his aircraft to buy the loyalties of independent lawmakers.

Nawaz Sharif said the MQM and some parties (referring to BAP) and individuals were also sent by the establishment to the PTI’s camp.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2023