Like We Didn’t Know: Nawaz Decides Not To Contest NA-123 – UPDATED

Though the excuse being used is that Nawaz wants “a worker” to get the seat, there was never any question he was not going to contest for the NA-123 seat. Of course officially even now PML-N is claiming “Nawaz yet to decide” bit, the truth is there was never any doubt he would have to skip these as his balls were in the grip of the Saudis. Remember that according to the ‘non-existent’ 10-year deal between Mush and Nawaz — guaranteed by Saudis — Nawaz can not take part in elections till I believe December 2010. And I have maintained that is the reason why PML-N Punjab government tried it’s best to have the by-polls for NA-55 and NA-123 delayed.

Side Note: I do hope PML-N looses — at least in Rawalpindi. They have lost NA-21 Mansehra where their candidate got twice the number of votes of his rival just a year ago. PML-N is wondering what happened. I am not! (And the shame of it is that they lost to JUI-F, despite both PPP and PML-N misusing uplift funds.)

P.S. For a hint, NA should watch last night’s TV show D-Bate which debated “There is no opposition”. The poll at the start had 75% agreeing with that. At the end of the show 95% agreed. Nice job PML-N 😉

UPDATE Feb 02: PML-N has FINALLY announced Nawaz is not going to run for NA-123. Of course the world already knew. But what is funny is that until the last minute we had them denying this and pretending “it was going to be a party decision and the party was still debating the issue.” Below are three news items from today’s paper. In the first one we have Zulfiqar Khosa lying there was no deal with foreigners stopping Nawaz from running (so in fact he is confirming it 😉 ); the second one has PML-N spokesperson Sadiq Al-Farooq stating it does not matter if Nawaz takes part or not; and the third one confirming that it is indeed the Saudis squeezing his balls, warning him to live up to the 10-year old deal not to contest until 20 December 2010.