Sharif unwell, may be shifted to hospital today

RAWALPINDI/ LAHORE:
Deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s health has taken a downward turn during his incarceration in Adiala jail. He is apparently suffering from chest pain and facing urinary issues along with other symptoms.



A team of doctors from Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology, headed by its Chief Executive Major General (retd) Dr Azhar Mehmood Kayani, visited Adiala Jail and compiled a report after a detailed medical check-up. The report was sent to the Punjab Health secretary.

It recommended that Sharif be shifted to a hospital immediately for treatment. The story was first broken by Express News anchor Javed Chaudhry.

According to Chaudhry, Sharif suddenly fell seriously ill on Sunday. He has been in the prison for the last ten days, where his condition has deteriorated.




Safdar ‘unwell’, doctors to assess condition

Although his personal physician Dr Adnan had seen him twice in recent days, the jail administration called doctors from RIC to be sure of what had happened. The team spent about one-and-a-half hour checking Sharif.

According to the medical board, the amount of water in his body is very low, and because of that, his heartbeat has become erratic. The amount of urea in his blood has also become very high, which can cause a kidney failure.

The board’s finding suggested that Sharif be shifted to hospital immediately.

Sharif had complained about his health yesterday and the Punjab health secretary constituted a medical board headed by Maj Gen (retd) Dr Kayani.

Shifting of Sharif family to Sihala rest house postponed

The Punjab Prisons sources told Daily Express that they are waiting for the Punjab home department’s orders about shifting Sharif to the hospital.

Maj Gen (retd) Dr Kayani said the former PM is suffering from heart and kidney problems and, therefore, the board has suggested that he be shifted to a hospital because many of the tests required cannot be performed in jail, nor do jails have the necessary medical facilities required to treat his condition. However, the decision is up to the Punjab government, he added.

Meanwhile, there are strong chances that Sharif will be shifted to RIC today.

Caretaker provincial ministers Shaukat Javed and Ahmed Waqas Riaz said the jail superintendent has been informed in writing about Sharif’s health issues and the home department has formed a medical board which will perform another checkup today to decide on whether to shift him to a hospital. They confirmed that Sharif’s medical tests suggested he had kidney issues. The caretaker government is in touch with jail authorities and Nawaz Sharif is getting better medical facilities, they added.

Sharif was awarded a 10-year jail term in the Avenfield reference, while his daughter Maryam Nawaz was sentenced to seven years in jail, and his son-in-law Captain (retd) Safdar was sentenced to one year imprisonment.

The Observer view on Imran Khan and the Pakistan elections

Any new government lacking honest democratic credentials will be ill-equipped to confront the country’s challenges


 

Supporters of Imran Khan at a rally in Multan. Photograph: Ss Mirza/AFP/Getty Images


It seems all but impossible to discuss this week’s national elections in Pakistan without resorting to cricketing metaphors. That’s because the candidate who is widely tipped to win, Imran Khan, is famous less for his political acumen than for his captaincy of the Pakistan team that won the Cricket World Cup in 1992. In British terms, this is the equivalent of the late, much-missed Bobby Moore running for prime minister.

Thus, in well-spun media reports from the campaign trail, Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), is said to be poised to hit the opposition for six. Khan’s rival, the jailed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, is stumped for an answer. And Sharif’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), is appealing to the umpire against alleged ball-tampering by the “establishment”, meaning the army.

Imran Khan near victory in Pakistan election but some ask if he is playing fair

All well and good, but it does not take a spoilsport to point out the future of Pakistan’s democracy is not a game. The stakes are high in a youthful country of 200m, where many still live in grinding poverty. Although the economy expanded by nearly 6% in the year to June, the current account deficit is rising fast, partly due to currency devaluations. Economists say another IMF bailout may be unavoidable.

Pakistan’s next government also faces stiff challenges from hardline Islamist parties, which execrate the country’s “blasphemous”, western-educated, landed, secular elites and from violent extremists. Running for office in Pakistan can be a hazardous affair, as Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in 2007 demonstrated. The current campaign has been marred by a suicide bombing in Balochistan that killed 149 people.

Then there are wider, strategic concerns relating to war-torn Afghanistan, where Pakistan’s intelligence services have a history of meddling, and to India, a bigger, nuclear-armed and more successful competitor. Angered by what he claimed was Islamabad’s covert support for terrorism, Donald Trump vowed to slash US aid earlier this year. But that may only have enhanced China’s influence as a lender, development partner and supposed PML-N backer.

Pakistan elections: who is standing and what is at stake?

Khan’s cynical wooing of the religious parties (which earned him the nickname “Taliban Khan”), his anti-American rants and his election stance as an anti-corruption, populist champion of change, notwithstanding his privileged Oxbridge upbringing, have left some voters unsure whether he can be trusted. His tweeted suggestion that Sharif was somehow behind the Balochistan bomb was unseemly.


But the PML-N, now led by Nawaz’s brother and fellow Punjabi feudal baron, Shehbaz Sharif, is scarcely a more confidence-inspiring choice. What is vital is that the army, which is said to favour Khan, does not succeed in its alleged efforts to rig the vote and dictate Wednesday’s outcome. Any new government lacking honest democratic credentials will be ill-equipped to confront the country’s challenges.