Irfan Shafi Khokhar and Ali Pervez Malik to replace Maryam Nawaz as PML-N candidates in Pakistan polls

Lahore: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Saturday decided on the election candidates to replace former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s daughter Maryam Nawaz, who was disqualified from contesting the polls in the Avenfield reference verdict. The party has issued tickets to its Lahore wing president Ali Pervez Malik for NA-127, one of the constituencies Maryam Nawaz was to contest from before she was disqualified, Geo News reported. [caption id=“attachment_3803067” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Maryam Nawaz. AP[/caption] For the provincial Assembly seat of PP-173 (Nankana Sahib), Irfan Shafi Khokhar will now be contesting in her place on the PML-N ticket. On Friday, the accountability court hearing the Avenfield reference, related to the Sharif family’s purchase of upscale London flats, sentenced the former Prime Minister to 10 years in prison and fined him $10 million. The reference is one of the several corruption cases filed against him and his children by the anti-corruption body on the Supreme Court’s directives in the last year’s Panamagate verdict. Maryam was sentenced to seven years and was fined $2.6 million. Her husband and PML-N lawmaker Captain (retd) Mohammad Safdar Awan was handed a year in jail. Earlier on Saturday, the poll body issued directives to halt the printing of ballot papers from the constituencies from where Maryam Nawaz and Safdar were to contest. The electoral body stated that Maryam Nawaz’s name will be removed from the ballot papers of NA-127 Lahore while Safdar’s name will be removed from NA-14 Mansehra. New ballot papers of both constituencies will be printed later after receiving a court order, the report said.