The electorate should choose which party they will vote for on the basis of their record rather than on the basis of emotion, otherwise Pakistan will suffer further, said PML-N Punjab President Shahbaz Sharif on Wednesday.
Addressing a press conference in Model Town, Sharif said that five years ago, the nation had voted in an emotional state after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the result was load-shedding, unemployment and economic collapse.
He said that if the people voted under a cloud of emotion again – a reference to the widespread sympathy for Tehreek-i-Insaf following Imran Khan’s tumble and injury in Lahore on Tuesday night – it would set the country back over 20 years.
Sharif said that he had visited Khan in hospital and wished him a speedy recovery. But voting was a serious matter and people should look at the parties’ records before deciding.
In two “short terms”, Nawaz Sharif built the Motorway, carried out nuclear tests and built airports, he said. In the last five years, the PML-N-led Punjab government built the Metro Bus Service, defeated dengue and changed the look of all major cities in the province through development works, he said.
The former chief minister said that he hoped that his party would win a majority so it could form government and “lead the people of Pakistan out of their suffering”.
He said that President Asif Ali Zardari and the PML-Q leadership had put Imran Khan in the frontline against the PML-N. If people voted for anyone except the ‘Tiger’, they would be voting for Zardari and the PML-Q. He said President Zardari had given the country 18 hours a day of darkness, set corruption records and led the country to economic collapse.
Also at the press conference, Senator Ishaq Dar rejected allegations made by former interior minister Rehman Malik that he was an approver in corruption and money laundering cases against the Sharif family.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 9th, 2013.