2024 elections: Shahid Khaqan Abbasi virtually pulls out of electoral politics

ISLAMABAD: Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the former prime minister and a senior leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), has decided not to contest the general election 2024. He did not file his nomination papers for his home constituency of Murree, NA-51, by the deadline on Monday.

Abbasi, who served as the prime minister from August 2017 to May 2018, has won the Murree seat three times and lost twice in his political career.

His son, Nader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, had obtained the nomination papers for the same seat, but he also did not submit them on his father’s instructions.

Sources close to Abbasi said that he was unhappy with the PML-N’s leadership and strategy, and had distanced himself from the party affairs for the past eight months. He had also stopped attending the party meetings.

Abbasi’s withdrawal from electoral politics has created a political vacuum in Murree, where the PML-N will have to find a suitable candidate to face the challenge from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which won the seat in the 2018 election.