LAHORE: Pakistan’s three-time PM Nawaz Sharif kick-started his party’s campaign for next year’s election on Saturday after arriving home from four years of self-imposed exile in London, promising to tackle record inflation.
“I have no desire to seek revenge but wish to end the country’s tough economic conditions and put it back on the path of growth,” said the 73-year-old veteran politician in his address to thousands of his supporters at his eastern hometown of Lahore. “My only desire is to see this nation prosper,” he said.
He recalled how he gave a “befitting reply” to India’s atomic explosion by conducting nuclear tests in 1998. He claimed that he was offered USD 5 billion by then US president Bill Clinton for not conducting the nuclear tests but he went ahead with the programme.
He promised to work toward economic recovery, without laying any plans, saying, “We will control inflation.” Earlier, he landed in a chartered plane at Islamabad airport where he signed and filed appeals against the convictions he was jailed for before he left the country in 2019.
“I lost my mother and wife to politics,” Nawaz Sharif said while addressing a mammoth rally at Minar-e-Pakistan here this evening, getting visibly emotional as he described how he faced the news of their deaths during his imprisonment.
In an almost emotionally choked voice, he said he had lost his mother and wife “to politics” and recalled how he couldn’t pay the final respects to either his mother, father or wife.
His daughter Maryam Nawaz said the return of her father was the biggest day of her life and predicted that the country would see the former PM staging another comeback in politics.
Sharif had not set foot in Pakistan since leaving for London in 2019 to receive medical treatment while serving a 14-year prison sentence for corruption. His convictions remain in force, but a court on Thursday barred authorities from arresting him until Tuesday, when he is to appear in court.
While he cannot run for or hold public office because of his convictions, his legal team says he plans to appeal and his party says he aims to become PM for a fourth time.
Sharif’s biggest challenge will be to wrest back his support base from his main rival, Khan, who despite being in jail remains popular following his ouster from the premiership in 2022.
Khan, too, is disqualified from the election because of his August graft conviction, which he has appealed.