SIALKOT: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif on Saturday said the PTI chairman didn’t come into power on his own as he was ‘promoted’ to the office, adding that those behind imposing him on Pakistan were equally responsible for the current state of affairs of the nation.

Addressing a PML-N workers’ convention here, he questioned how a country could be managed when the prime ministers are removed, arbitrarily. Pakistan would have been much better placed if the PML-N governments weren’t toppled and continuity of policies had been ensured, he said.

Why RTS was shut down and election results manipulated in 2018, the three-time prime minister questioned and noted that the whole exercise was designed to place a person into power who knew nothing but abusive language.

Nawaz said they were not defeated in 1993 and 1999 or in 2017 – the years when his tenures ended prematurely – and noted that his governments had always been toppled without any reason.

Nawaz listed the achievements of his 2013-17 tenure when, he said, the country was moving forward with a lot of job opportunities and low rate of inflation, as well as, a substantial increase in the tax-to-GDP ratio. He remarked that it wasn’t just removal of his government; in fact, the entire country had been derailed.

A prime minister elected by millions of people was kicked out of the office by five persons, he said about the five-member bench which sentenced and disqualified him in the Panama Papers case. “We cannot afford repeating these mistakes again and again,” the PML-N supremo said. “We have experienced injustices but have never and would never work against the country’s interests.”

In his speech, PML-N senior leader Khawaja Asif said Nawaz would be elected prime minister for a fourth term on Feb 8, adding that those trying to remove the three-time prime minister from politics have already been vanished.

Not a single MNA of PML-N switched his or her loyalty despite all the hardships and political victimisation they had to face, he said and mentioned that there was a long queue of individuals requesting forgiveness over their past actions.