“Will the nation’s mandate ever be respected?” Ousted PM

Pakistan’s ousted premier Nawaz Sharif has expressed that he expected newly elected Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to continue till the general election due next year, scuttling a move to elevate his brother Shehbaz Sharif to the top post.
Sharif has asked his brother, who is the chief minister of the politically crucial Punjab province, to continue in that position.Earlier there were speculation that Shehbaz Shairf may get to become the Prime Minister replacing his brother.
Soon after the Supreme Court disqualified Sharif, 67, in connection with the Panama Papers case last month, he announced that Abbasi, 58, would be made the interim prime minister till Shehbaz could be elected as a member of the National Assembly.
“It is my wish that Shahid Khaqan Abbasi remains prime minister till the end of the PML-N’s)tenure,” Sharif told senior leaders of the ruling party at a meeting at Punjab House here before setting off on a rally to Lahore. Sharif said the work Shehbaz had done in Punjab was invaluable and it was important he continued doing the same work in the province. Nawaz Sharif has been organizing rallies with thousands of PML-N supporters from Islamabad to his hometown of Lahore. At one of the rallies, Nawaz Sharif said Pakistan had only seen “a crippled democracy”. He asked: “Will the nation’s mandate ever be respected? “Or will it continue to be dishonoured and ignored? Will we ever have the rule of law in this