Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Roots

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)
Roots

The immediate roots of the PML-N lie in the merging of various PML factions in 1985 into becoming a single entity again. The merging took place on the behest of Pakistan’s third military dictator, General Ziaul Haq(11) who needed a civilian expression of his rule in a handpicked National Assembly. The factions that came together to form the 1985 version of PML had historical links with two PML groups that had emerged in 1962 during the Ayub Khan dictatorship (Council and Convention).
PML-Convention was pro-Ayub whereas PML-Council oopposed him.
Both the Convention and Council Leagues were mostly made up of members who had been active in Pakistan’s first ruling party, the Muslim League that in turn was an extension of the All India Muslim League (AIML).
AIML was the leading Muslim party in undivided India during the ‘Pakistan Movement’. Though formed in 1906 to represent the economic, political and social interests of India’s Muslims, the AIML shot to prominence from the 1930s onwards.
It claimed to be the sole representative of the Muslims of India, a claim that was bitterly disputed by the Muslim leaders of the Indian National Congress as well as by fundamentalist Islamic parties such as the Majlis-e-Ahrar, Jamiat Ulema Islam Hind and the Jamat-e-Islami(12).
AIML simply became the Muslim League after the creation of Pakistan in 1947. And even though (or since) it also became the new country’s first ruling party, it was soon riddled by serious infighting and power games, especially after Jinnah’s death in 1948.

Top League leaders Jinnah (left) and Liaquat Ali Khan (right) share a smoke just a few days after the creation of Pakistan. Jinnah became the country’s governor general and Ali became the prime minister. Jinnah died in 1948 and Ali was assassinated in 1951. During the 1970 general election, three prominent ML factions contested the historic polls: Convention, Council and Qayyum League (ML-Q).
All the three factions were routed by the PPP, National Awami Part (NAP) and the Bengali nationalist party, the Awami League in the election, even though the Qayyum League did comparatively well in the former NWFP.
The Q League merged with the PPP(13) after the later came into power in 1972.
In 1973 the Convention and Council Leagues merged to become Functional Muslim League. The party became part of the nine-party anti-PPP electoral alliance, the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) for the 1977 election.

Head of Functional Muslim League Pir Pagaro talking to media men at the Karachi Press Club in 1977. In 1985 Zia urged the head of the Functional League, Pir Pagaro, to turn the party into a united front by merging all PML factions.
This was also when for the first time the PML shifted radically towards adopting overt religious symbolism and rhetoric.

Muhammad Khan Junejo (left) with Ziaul Haq and Ghulam Ishaq Khan (1985). Junejo became the head of the PML that was revamped by Zia. In the 1988 election the PML became an important part of the right-wing nine-party alliance the Islami Jamhoori Ittihad (IJI). The alliance was narrowly defeated by the PPP.
In 1993 the PML split again when Mian Nawaz Sharif broke away to form the PML-Nawaz (PML-N).
PML-N became the largest faction and the most popular. It came into power (as IJI) in 1990 and then (as PML-N) after the 1997 election.

Nawaz Sharif as PM poses for a picture with the Pakistan cricket team that won the 1992 Cricket World Cut (under Imran Khan’s captaincy). Khan joined politics in 1996 and today his party is posing the stiffest electoral challenge to the PML-N in the Punjab. Between 1990 and 1997, PML-N emphasised on being a quasi-Islamic and pro-business party. However, after its government was toppled in 1999 by General Parvez Musharraf, PML-N (throughout the 2000s) revived itself as a staunchly pro-democracy party.
It remains to be the largest PML faction with the most electoral appeal compared to other existing PML factions, rapidly evolving in the last decade to become a prominent democratic force in the country – especially in the Punjab and in the Hindko-speaking areas of KP.
Election pundits and a number of popularity polls have put PML-N in the front to become the majority party after this year’s May 11 election(14).
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Electoral history (National Assembly)(15)
• 1988 Election
Seats won: 54 (out of 204 NA seats) (16)
• 1990 Election
Seats won: 105 (out of 206 NA seats) (17) Formed government.

Nawaz Sharif (third from left) with MQM chief, Altaf Hussain (second from left), in Karachi soon after Nawaz was elected as PM in 1990. • 1993 Election
Seats won: 73 (out of 202 NA seats)
• 1997 Election
Seats won: 135 (out of 204 NA seats)

Nawaz Sharif behind bars at a police lock-up after his government was toppled in a military coup in 1999. He was later sent into exile. • 2002 Election
Seats won: 15 (out of 271 NA seats)
• 2008 Election
Seats won: 72 (out of 268 NA seats)

Nawaz Sharif with PPP Chairperson, late Benazir Bhutto, in London, 2006. The two former foes signed a Charter of Democracy and vowed to work together to keep the military out of politics. Areas of electoral influence: Punjab; parts of South Punjab; Hindko-speaking areas of KP.
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Ideological evolution: Quasi-Islamic/Conservative (1988-93); Quasi-Islamic/Conservative/Populist (1993-2000); Centre-Right/Populist (2002 - ).

Nawaz Sharif in 2009. His party is popular among Punjab’s business and trader classes. Views on religion: Politically moderate but socially conservative, even though recently some liberal leaders have been allowed to come to the front.
Over the years the party is trying to shed its old ‘Ziaist’/Islamic image and cultivate a more moderate and democratic appeal, even though in the last five years it has been accused by opponents of being vague and uncommitted in its stand against religious extremism and terrorism in Pakistan.

Nawaz Sharif with his handpicked president, Rafiq Tarar, who was a staunch member of the apolitical Islamic evangelical movement, the Tableeghi Jamat.

Columnist Ayaz Amir was one of the most liberal and secular leaders of the PML-N. He was however refused a party ticket for the 2013 election on the behest of the party’s ‘hawks.’ Youth Wing: Muslim Students Federation-Nawaz (MSF-N) formed: 1993; Muslim Youth Organization (MYO) formed: 2009.

The MSF flag