On Tuesday, Nawaz Sharif, former Prime Minister of Pakistan for the third time running, was reelected as head of the ruling party in Pakistan—the Muslim League. It was six years ago when he left his post after a Supreme Court verdict. During the general council meeting of his political party, nobody contested against him as its new president; it happened on a day that his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif declared it a public holiday to mark 26th anniversary of Pakistan’s nuclear tests which were carried out during Nawaz’s second term as prime minister.
Pakistan became the seventh country to acquire atomic weapons and the first Muslim state with nuclear warheads by conducting Chaghi hills nuclear test on May 28th1998, almost three weeks after India had tested her devices.
However, despite having an absolute hold on power in May 1998, Nawaz could not even commemorate one year of those tests due to his removal from office by General Pervez Musharraf in October that year through a military coup.
As he begins another term as PML-N President today marks coinciding with the 26thanniversary of these events. Shehbaz had given up control and allowed Nawaz back into power who is now aged seventy-four and has run this seventy-four-years-old organization since then.
Shehbaz praised Nawaz upon returning home from self-imposed exile in London in October 2023 over the nuclear tests that led to “credible minimum deterrence.” In this statement posted on X, he said: “On this historic day in 1998, then-PM Nawaz Sharif demonstrated bold leadership by rejecting nerve-wracking pressures and inducements to make Pakistan a nuclear-armed nation.” He also paid tribute to ex-prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was responsible for founding Pakistan’s nuclear program because of his strategic foresight and unwavering commitment to the cause.
Nawaz, who had been prime minister until his disqualification for life by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case, returned to Pakistan in October 2023 after four years in self-imposed exile in Britain. A few weeks later, a panel of judges also barred him from leading any political party.
