Shehbaz Sharif: What lies ahead for Nawaz's saviour?

Whether one buys it or not, the undisputed truth is that Shehbaz Sharif, burst forth as the eventual redeemer for Nawaz Sharif, meticulously transforming his elder brother from a convicted fugitive to a prime ministerial candidate within a mere three months.

I criticised 16 months of Shehbaz’s government on many issues but I cannot deny the fact he is the man who saved Pakistan from a default and also saved the country from a fifth martial law in November 2022.

Pakistan is heading towards a very controversial election on February 8 and PML-N came up with a new slogan “Pakistan ko Nawaz do” but who gifted Nawaz to PML-N this time?

Pakistan’s thrice-elected former prime minister Nawaz returned home in October 2023 after four years of self-imposed exile in London. Don’t forget that Nawaz also returned home in July 2018 and he was arrested at Lahore airport along with his daughter Maryam Nawaz. 

Why was he not arrested at Islamabad airport in October 2023 even though he was a convicted absconder? It was the one and only Shehbaz who created circumstances in which high police officials were saluting Nawaz on his arrival in Lahore. 

Shehbaz convinced his elder brother to change the anti-establishment narrative. It was very difficult to change the party’s narrative just a few months before the election but Maryam Nawaz also helped her uncle quietly.

Is it not a miracle that Nawaz and his daughter were acquitted of charges in the Avenfield apartment case and Al-Azizia corruption case, their conviction was also quashed and then the Supreme Court lifted the lifetime ban on Nawaz in just three months? 

Some people give credit to the courts for providing speedy justice to Nawaz but many people know that it was Shehbaz who was working behind the scenes for the return of his elder brother in electoral politics through legal channels. 

People like Sheikh Rashid Ahmad made huge claims that a “Sheen” (Urdu alphabet letter) version of PML may come out of the “Noon” and ultimately Shehbaz will part ways with Nawaz.

All political astrologists who claimed that Shehbaz may ditch his brother before the 2024 election proved wrong. Shehbaz always behaved like an obedient younger brother but he never hesitated to disagree with his brother on many political issues — respectfully.

Not many people know that Shehbaz met Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto at Lords Hotel Lahore in the late 60s, recently after he had launched the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). 

He was a student at Government College University in those days. At that impressionable age Shehbaz started taking fancy to Bhutto but Nawaz, however, was not in his brother’s league. Shehbaz saw a change of heart after the Bhutto regime nationalised their family industry in 1972.

I know that Shehbaz was offered premiership at least four times between 1990 and 2018 if he betrayed Nawaz but he refused very “respectfully” each time.

First of all, he was offered the premiership by the late president Ghulam Ishaq Khan in 1992. He wanted to replace Shehbaz with Nawaz because the younger Sharif was a member of the National Assembly in those days. Shehbaz turned it down. 

He told me about this offer in 1995 when I met him in Adiala jail and Benazir Bhutto was prime minister. I remember that General (retd) Pervez Musharraf had told me nine months before his coup in January 1999 that he wanted Shehbaz to take over the foreign ministry because he was very popular among his corps commanders. 

Just a few days before the coup in October 1999, Shehbaz was offered premiership a second time by Musharraf but he did not ditch his brother.

Another army chief General (retd) Raheel Sharif wanted Shehbaz to become prime minister in 2016 because the then-PM Nawaz refused to grant him a three-year extension as well as the rank of Field Marshal. 

Raheel tried to cut a deal with Shehbaz but the latter refused the office of prime minister for the third time. The same offer was made to Shehbaz in 2018 by General (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa. 

This time, Bajwa wanted Shehbaz to distance himself from the politics of Nawaz and military leadership was ready to accept the younger Sharif as the PM. Shehbaz told Bajwa clearly that he always wanted reconciliation with the military but he would not betray his elder brother.

This is interesting to note that General Musharraf, General Raheel, and General Bajwa were appointed by Nawaz but all three tried to break Shehbaz away from his brother. 

Shehbaz finally became prime minister in April 2022 through a no-confidence vote against Imran Khan with the blessing of Nawaz. It is generally believed that no-confidence against Imran was sponsored and supported by General (retd) Bajwa. 

Facts are different from fiction. Yes, General (retd) Bajwa developed some serious differences with Imran in 2021. He allowed anti-PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) parties to put pressure on Imran. 

This pressure worked and Imran offered Bajwa another extension just a few days before the vote of no-confidence. General (retd) Bajwa tried his best to block the no-confidence vote but Shehbaz and Asif Ali Zardari along with Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam’s (JUI) Maulana Fazalur Rehman and other Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) parties’ leaders had decided to oust Imran. 

They refused to withdraw no-confidence in the face of General (retd) Bajwa.

Without going into the details of the double games played by General  (retd) Bajwa, with both Shehbaz and Imran, I would like to mention a hot day in May 2022 when Shehbaz decided to dissolve the National Assembly and announce new elections. 

Shehbaz prepared his speech but on the other hand, Imran tried to score a political point against Shehbaz. He announced a march towards Islamabad on May 25 and declared war on the government for freedom. 

He wanted to give the impression that Shehbaz was going to announce a new election due to his political pressure. Shehbaz refused to be blackmailed by Imran and cancelled the announcement. 

He chose a very difficult and challenging path. On one side General (retd) Bajwa started meeting Imran secretly through President Arif Alvi, and on the other hand, the devaluation of the rupee and price hikes created a lot of resentment against the PDM government in the general public.

Imran was taking advantage of the inflation and gained popularity by default. He was putting public pressure on the new elections and holding big rallies against the Shehbaz government. 

In those difficult days, General (retd) Bajwa was trying to get another extension through Shehbaz. Some senior ministers of PML-N quietly lobbied for Bajwa’s extension but Shehbaz did what Nawaz told him to do regarding the appointment of a new army chief. 

Nawaz suggested appointing General Asim Munir as the new army chief. When Bajwa got the wind of it he threatened Shehbaz with martial law, but the latter handled the former very wisely.

When the younger Sharif was busy averting the threat of martial law he was also facing a big climate threat. The Shehbaz government was forced to declare a state of emergency on August 25, 2022, when thousands of Pakistanis were killed in historic floods. 

Over two million people were left homeless and 33 million were affected due to floods. I covered the 2022 floods in the whole country and saw Shehbaz and his foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari wading through floodwaters in affected areas day and night. 

Many times, after watching my coverage on Geo News, the then-PM Shehbaz would call me around 6am to get some details of the affected areas of Sindh and Balochistan. 

Then, he would visit the affected areas the next day. It impressed me because his party was not popular in those areas. These days, Bilawal criticises PML-N every day, but I remember that when Shehbaz saved Pakistan from a default by making a new deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2023 — both PM and Bilawal congratulated and also gave credit to each other.

Bilawal is not ready to take the blame for the price hike Pakistanis faced in 16 months of a coalition government led by Shehbaz, but he cannot deny that he was part of every decision taken by that government. 

According to the World Freedom Index of 2023, Pakistan Pakistan ranked 150 out of 180 countries, whereas it stood at 157 in 2022 when Imran was prime minister. 

Pakistan improved its position but the fact is that many journalists like Imran Riaz were abducted and remained missing for months when Shehbaz was in power. Many other journalists were taken by authorities in fake sedition cases and some of them were forced to leave Pakistan.

Shehbaz watched all this as a silent spectator. He was heading a king-size cabinet which drew fire from all sides for being the biggest in the world. Many times he looked helpless. 

His law minister presented many controversial bills in the parliament which were supported by PPP and other coalition partners without even reading. In the new election manifesto, PML-N is making new promises including some important constitutional amendments. 

They need a two-thirds majority for the constitutional reforms that’s why they are avoiding responding to the criticism of Bilawal because they may invite them to join a national unity government again. 

Many PML-N stalwarts told me that they might emerge as a majority party on February 8 but a two-third majority is still a dream.

Shehbaz himself is announcing again and again that Nawaz will become prime minister for the fourth time. 

The question is: if Nawaz becomes prime minister and Maryam Nawaz takes over as the chief minister of Punjab, what will be the role of Shehbaz? Right now Shehbaz doesn’t have any answer to this question. He says: “Let Nawaz Sharif become prime minister the fourth time and then he will decide my role”.

Hamid Mir is a senior journalist, anchor, and columnist, associated with Geo News. He posts @HamidMirPAK

— Header and thumbnail design by IMM Creative