Islamabad [Pakistan], July 17 : General elections in Pakistan are likely to be held in November, three months after the dissolution of the National Assembly, Dawn reported.
Dawn is a Pakistani English-language newspaper.
This comes as Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said that he will hand over the reins to the caretaker set-up next month before the completion of the assembly’s tenure.
Shehbaz Sharif while speaking at a laptop distribution ceremony at the Government College Women’s University in Sialkot on Sunday, said: “Next month, our government will complete its tenure, [but] we will leave before the completion of our tenure and an interim government will come in.”
The five-year constitutional term of the incumbent National Assembly will end on August 12 at midnight. According to law, general elections take place within 60 days if the elected house completes its constitutional tenure of five years. In case of early dissolution, elections are held within 90 days of the dissolution, as per Dawn.
Shehbaz Sharif earlier in the day told a youth loan distribution ceremony in Lahore that whatever the verdict of the people in the next polls, the PML-N would accept the public mandate. He, however, urged the people to decide after comparing the performance of PML-N with that of the four-year “saga of destruction”.
The premier hinted at the return of Nawaz Sharif to the electoral arena. He promised that if voted back to power, Nawaz Sharif, as the fourth time elected prime minister, would “make Pakistan great”.
“Nawaz Sharif Sahib will turn Pakistan into a progressive state if people provided him another opportunity to lead the country. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and the entire leadership of PML-N would change the destiny of the country by putting it on the path of progress and prosperity,” he said as per Dawn.
He said that under the leadership of the elder Sharif, they had delivered on the ground and “foiled the conspiracies hatched by the anti-state elements”.
He regretted that Nawaz Sharif was ousted despite the fact that he had “ended hours-long crippling load shedding, provided laptops and loans to the youth, brought the multi-billion dollars China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, as well as carried out several infrastructure projects”.
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