Maryam Nawaz: Journey From a Part-Time Politician to Chief Minister of Punjab

Until two years ago, she was not even eligible to participate in the elections, but after the recent elections, Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, was elected as the Chief Minister of Punjab province.

Also, she has become the first woman Chief Minister of any province in the history of Pakistan. His party Pakistan Muslim League-N has emerged as the party with the highest number of seats in the Assembly of Punjab, which is of central importance in the electoral politics of the country. They have a clear numerical advantage in the House without the support of any other party.

Therefore, Maryam Nawaz did not face any complications in the election of the Chief Minister in the Assembly on Monday.

However, participating in electoral politics before 2022 was the biggest complication for Maryam Nawaz. In 2018, an accountability court sentenced him to seven years in the Ivan Field case.

She was convicted and sent to jail for “helping his father Nawaz Sharif to hide his property in London” in this case. She was also disqualified from participating in electoral politics for ten years.

However, in 2022, the Pakistan Democratic Movement, comprising the then-opposition parties, overthrew Imran Khan’s government before the completion of its term through a no-confidence vote. Maryam Nawaz‘s uncle Shehbaz Sharif was elected as the new Prime Minister.

In September of the same year, the Islamabad High Court overturned Maryam Nawaz’s sentence in the Avanfield case and she became eligible to participate in electoral politics again. Thus, for the first time in the recent general elections, she entered electoral politics.

Before the year 2016-17, Maryam Nawaz did not come into practical politics. Until then, most of her attention was focused on activating the social media wing of her father’s party, the PML-N, and mobilizing the youth.

After that, she went from expressing Nawaz Sharif’s ‘respect your vote’ resistance narrative in public to going to jail, becoming the party’s chief organizer and vice president, and then in the other direction to the protest narrative during the PDM government. He completed his journey from abandonment to the chair of the Supreme Ministry very quickly.

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Journalist and analyst Sohail Waraich believes that initially, Maryam Nawaz was not Nawaz Sharif’s first choice for his political succession “and she was not even a favorite of Pakistan’s powerful establishment.”

In such a situation, how did Maryam Nawaz Pakistan become the first woman Chief Minister of any province? To know this, let’s look at his political life.

Pervez Musharraf’s martial law and the Sharif family’s deportation

Analyst Sohail Waraich believes that the change in the opinion of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif regarding the role of Maryam Nawaz in politics was based on the days when the Sharif family was deported to Saudi Arabia after the martial law of 1999.

This was the period when Nawaz Sharif used to discuss politics for hours with his wife Kulsoom Nawaz and his daughter Maryam Nawaz in Saudi Arabia. Kulsoom Nawaz already had her influence on Nawaz Sharif’s political decision-making. Nawaz Sharif valued his opinion.

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Journalist and analyst Salman Ghani says that Maryam Nawaz got her first taste of behind-the-scenes practical politics in the same period of 1999. “When her father and other men of the family were put in jail, Maryam Nawaz stood by her side in raising her voice for their release.”

Referring to her many contacts, Salman Ghani says that she was not forthcoming but sometimes she was more active than Begum Kulsoom Nawaz.

Salman Ghani says that Maryam Nawaz had to play this ‘slightly political’ role due to circumstances, but even after years of exile and coming to Pakistan after the deportation, Maryam Nawaz kept herself away from practical politics.

Entry into party politics through social media

It was after 2011 when Imran Khan and his party started wooing the young generation through jallas and processions and especially through the use of social media that the PML-N first came to grips with the rapidly changing political landscape.

Despite Shahbaz Sharif‘s government in Punjab, Imran Khan organized a huge rally this year at Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore in which he managed to gather thousands of people. A large number of them were young people.

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After that, in 2012, PML-N brought Maryam Nawaz into the fray to counter the growing influence of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf on social media. She mobilized the media wing of PML-N and focused on social media.

Analyst Salman Ghani believes that Maryam Nawaz started to establish her influence within the party from here. “Nawaz Sharif also probably began to realize his political understanding more seriously.”

In the year 2013, when Nawaz Sharif’s government was established at the center, Maryam Nawaz was appointed as the Chairperson of the Prime Minister’s Youth Program, but she could not remain in this position for long and had to say goodbye to her when the PTI Challenging the appointment in the Lahore High Court calling it ‘indicative of recommendation culture’.

Even then, Maryam Nawaz kept insisting that she was only supporting the cyber cell of her father’s party and had no intention of entering practical politics, but soon she had to change her decision.

A step into practical politics

Nawaz Sharif once again lost the Prime Ministership in 2017. This time he was convicted by the Supreme Court in the Panama case and took to the streets with a resistance narrative of ‘respect the vote’ in which he targeted the then military leadership and the Supreme Judiciary.

Nawaz Sharif, while traveling on the GT Road in Punjab, held rallies at various places and in his speeches held the judiciary and the then military leadership responsible for usurping his prime ministership. His narrative seemed to be well received in Punjab.

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However, after that, when Nawaz Sharif had to go around the courts in the cases related to Panama and later was punished, Maryam Nawaz went in his place in public and started interpreting the narrative of honoring his vote. This was his first step into practical politics.

Journalist and analyst Sohail Waraich says that till then the only candidate for Nawaz Sharif‘s successor was Hamza Shehbaz Sharif, but after that, the situation changed. Maryam Nawaz stood with her father on the resistance narrative.

Sohail Waraich, mentioning one of his recent columns, said that he had already written that in this period, standing firm on the narrative of Nawaz Sharif, supporting him, spending time in jail with him, and then his absence. By keeping the Jamaat active, Maryam Nawaz replaced her father as a candidate for succession.

These are the places where Hamza Shehbaz fell behind Maryam Nawaz and today Maryam Nawaz is the Chief Minister of Punjab province.

Sohail Waraich says that before this Hamza Shehbaz was handling the affairs at the party organization level in PML-N.

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Maryam Nawaz was first senior vice president, then chief organizer of the party

In 2018, along with Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz was sentenced by the accountability court in the Avenfield Properties case related to the Panama case verdict on her return to London. She was jailed for seven years and disqualified for ten years.

At that time, she was planning to contest the 2018 elections and had also submitted the papers.

A few months later, he was released on bail after appealing the decision in the High Court. In the year 2019, she was again arrested in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case and kept in Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore where Nawaz Sharif was already imprisoned.

At the end of the same year, Nawaz Sharif was first transferred from prison to hospital after his health deteriorated and then allowed to go to London for treatment by air ambulance. Nawaz Sharif was allowed to leave for a few weeks but did not return before the recent elections.

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Maryam Nawaz was released from jail on bail before she went to London, but she was not allowed to go to London and her passport was kept on the order of the court.

Journalist and analyst Salman Ghani says that during this period, Nawaz Sharif had decided to make Maryam Nawaz his political successor. This was the reason why Nawaz Sharif was absent, Maryam Nawaz was first made the senior vice president and then the chief organizer of the party.

He says she aimed to organize the Maryam Nawaz Jamaat and connect with the party workers at the grassroots level. In the absence of Nawaz Sharif, she continued to run the affairs of the party for Nawaz Sharif.

What happened to the resistance narrative in the PDM government?

Journalist and analyst Salman Ghani says that Maryam Nawaz was naturally inclined to adopt a resistance and aggressive style from the beginning. “She is a courageous woman who knows how to make tough and aggressive decisions.”

However, in 2022, when a movement called the Pakistan Democratic Movement including her party and other opposition parties ended Imran Khan’s government and established its government under the leadership of Shehbaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz’s resistance against the “establishment and the judiciary” His narrative has not been seen on the political scene.

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She went behind the scenes. During the period of inflation and other problems faced by the people, she must have held some press conferences during the PDM government, but his role was mostly limited to giving suggestions and building the image of Nawaz Sharif.

In September of the same year, the Islamabad High Court overturned his sentence in the Avenfield case and the government of his uncle Shehbaz Sharif also passed amendments in the election laws, which resulted in Maryam Nawaz and Nawaz Sharif once again. Permission was granted to contest the election.

Journalist and analyst Salman Ghani says about the ‘silence on the resistance narrative’ and going behind the scenes during the PDM’s rule that ‘Also see that at that time Nawaz Sharif himself was seen to be silent on his resistance narrative. So Maryam also took the same line.’

How to reach the top ministry by being ‘disliked’ by the establishment?

Maryam Nawaz contested one seat each for both the National and Provincial Assemblies in the recent elections from Lahore and won both. After the party position emerged at the center and Punjab, his party decided to keep him in the government of Punjab province.

The PML-N soon announced him as the party’s chief ministerial candidate after they were convinced that she was emerging as the largest party in Punjab and would easily form the government.

However, till the time of the elections, it was difficult to say that she would be able to take the Punjab Chief Ministership. There was also an aspect in this that according to analyst Sohail Waraich, ‘Maryam Nawaz was not a favorite of the establishment in the past.’

So, before the recent elections, the general impression was that it would be difficult for such a person to hold a major position, however, journalist and analyst Salman Ghani believes that one of the reasons for this could be that Nawaz Sharif was compensated. It was done because she was not given the prime ministership.

However, they believe that the powerful establishment of the country will look closely at Maryam Nawaz for the top ministry. “The opposition will also target them because they will see him as the future successor of Nawaz Sharif and no one else.”

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They say that Maryam Nawaz will have to face aggressive behavior from the opposition both inside and outside the House and this will be a test of her skills in how she handles these issues.

‘Till now she was a part-time politician’

Talking to BBC, Sohail Waraich says ‘Until now, Maryam Nawaz was a part-time politician, she used to do what she got instructions from Nawaz Sharif. His full-time politics is going to start now.

Journalist and analyst Salman Ghani believes that Maryam Nawaz was forced to enter practical and electoral politics due to circumstances and there is no tradition of women entering politics in the Sharif family.

However, analysts believe that Maryam Nawaz will not only have to prove her skills as an administrator, but her biggest challenge will also be to bring the middle and urban class of Punjab back to the PML-N. It has gone to PTI.
50-year-old Maryam Nawaz is the eldest of three siblings. She got married in 1992 to Capt Retired Safdar. She has two daughters and one son.