Will Imran Khan accept results if PML-N wins Punjab elections? asks Maryam Nawaz

• Elections will be held only after scales of justice are balanced, Maryam says.
• “Who is protecting Imran Khan even today?” PML-N stalwart asks.
• Says PTI chairman finds a shelter of “judicial establishment”.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Senior Vice President and Chief Organiser Maryam Nawaz has asked whether Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) defiant Chairman Imran Khan would accept results if her party sweeps the upcoming general elections in Punjab — once a stronghold of the PML-N.

Her statement came following PTI’s severe criticism against the incumbent government after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) postponed the general elections in Punjab — initially scheduled to be held on April 30 — citing security reasons as the major cause behind the change of plan.

Talking to a delegation of PML-N lawyers wing, who called on her in Lahore on Sunday, Maryam asked: “Who will give a guarantee that Imran Khan will accept results if PML-N wins elections in Punjab?” She added that the PTI chief may accuse Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of rigging after the elections.

The PML-N stalwart said that there is no other way to steer the country out of the crisis but the holding elections for political stability.

She also reiterated that the elections will be held only after the scales of justice are balanced.

Berating the former prime minister — who was ousted via a parliamentary vote in April last year — Maryam claimed that Khan was brought into power through "facilitators".

Those who brought him into power, later realised they committed a big mistake, she added.

Turning her guns towards the judiciary, she said that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was ousted from office for not taking salaries from his son.

In July 2017, Nawaz Sharif stepped down as the prime minister after being disqualified from holding public office by the Supreme Court in a landmark decision on the Panama Papers case.

Announcing its verdict, the five-member bench unanimously disqualified Nawaz for failing to disclose his un-withdrawn receivables constituting assets from UAE-based Capital FZE in his nominations papers for the 2013 General Election, stating that this meant he was not ‘honest’ and ‘truthful’, as per the Constitution.

“For the first time, I came to know that decisions are made as per the wishes of wives and children,” the scion of the Sharif family's political dynasty taunted the judiciary. 

She added that former chief of army staff (COAS) General (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa revealed that the “court made decisions as per the directions of wives.”

Their remnants still exist in the judiciary and Khan relies on them, Maryam said, adding, “Now he [Khan] found [a shelter of] judicial establishment.”

She asked, “Who is protecting Imran Khan even today?”

During her interaction with the delegation, the PML-N leader also said that the deposed premier dissolved the provincial assemblies of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to create anarchy and chaos in the country.

She termed Khan a “mentally ill person” and said that then-Punjab CM Parvez Elahi did not want to dissolve the provincial assembly.