By IANS
Islamabad : Indicative of the uncertainties in Pakistan’s political landscape, former prime minister Shaukat Aziz has said he would not run in the January general elections – just a week after emphatically stating he had been offered eight constituencies and would run from two.
“The former Citibank executive quietly bowed out of politics on Saturday, embarrassed and dejected,” The News reported Sunday.
“The (government) spokesman had reacted strongly on Nov 16 to a news item in The News that out of the 70 cabinet ministers, only two had wished that Aziz should get his top job back, with 68 just staying mum,” the newspaper pointedly noted.
On Saturday, Aziz announced he had neither applied for a Pakistan Muslim League (PML) ticket nor had apparently one been offered to him.
“The embarrassment was massive as he was not given a ticket while more than 100 were announced during three days of nomination process,” The News said.
“Shaukat Aziz will be shortly going to Karachi to stay with his daughter for some time,” it quoted a source as saying, adding that the former prime minister has offered to help the party in the election campaign.
According to the source, Aziz would at some stage go abroad for a while.
“However, (he) would keep coming to Pakistan off and on,” the source added.
Unlike when he was in power, Aziz now did not find any support in the PML parliamentary board.
“When he was prime minister, many had offered him to contest from their constituencies. At the time, (National Assembly members) Farooq Leghari and Salim Jan Mazari had made similar offers from Dera Ghazi Khan and Jamshoro, respectively. The idea was to get maximum funds for development for these areas,” The News said.
However, when the question of allocating the party ticket from Attock (from where Aziz was previously elected) came up at the PML board, party chief Shujaat Hussain was “busy” in a meeting with President Pervez Musharraf.
“Aziz was hurt for being opposed and ignored by the party (but) did not express his annoyance publicly. He rather said he had not applied for the ticket as he didn’t want to fight the elections,” The News said.
The other view is that since the PML would be facing a tough electoral battle, it did not want to field Aziz since he was a non-political person who did not have a “solid constituency” to back him.
According to this view, the PML could not afford a weak “outsider” in any constituency and wished to put up “powerful winnable” nominees in all areas.