page_title: Pakistan Muslim League (N)
section_title: 2002 general elections
hierarchical_section_title: Pakistan Muslim League (N) / History / Electoral history / 2002 general elections
caption_attribution_description: English: Picture of Javed Hashmi taken at pakistani national day, 2008
context_page_description: The Pakistani Muslim League is a centre-right conservative party in Pakistan. It was founded by former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif in 1993. The party's platform is generally conservative, which involves supporting free market capitalism. However, in recent years, the party’s political ideology and platform has shifted more towards liberalism.
  One of several continuing factions of the original Muslim League, the seeds of the party were sown following the 1985 Elections when the Prime Minister of Pakistan Muhammad Khan Junejo organised the supporters of President Zia-ul-Haq's dictatorship into a single party, known as the Pakistan Muslim League. After President Zia's death in 1988, under the leadership of Fida Mohammad Khan, a large faction split away from the Junejo-led Pakistan Muslim League, and formed a conservative alliance with various right-wing and Islamist political parties, called the Islamic Democratic Alliance. The alliance formed a government in 1990 under the leadership of Nawaz Sharif.
context_section_description: As a result of the Kargil War with India, the PML-N government had generated frustration within the party and a secret splinter group inside the party united on a one-point agenda with all the opposition parties in 1999 to remove Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from office. This resulted in a military coup d'état. The Supreme Court validated the coup and gave General Pervez Musharraf three years to hold general elections. After deposing Sharif's government, the party split into several groups and its size shrunk as many of its members decided to defect to the splinter political bloc. Many of its most influential members, sponsors, and financiers came to defect to the new group that was sympathetic to Pervez Musharraf. This splinter group emerged as the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), which registered itself as a political party with the Election Commission. Sharif was removed from the party's presidency and the position was handed over to Dr. Kalsoum Nawaz, wife of Sharif. With Nawaz Sharif exiled to Saudi Arabia, the party's presidency was handed over to Javed Hashmi, and the party began to reassert itself in the coming elections. They campaigned all over the country and competed in the 2002 general elections for the state parliament. The election polls announced the victory of the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) and the liberals, MQM, with PML-Q retaining the majority in the state parliament and brutally defeating the PML-N.
  During the 2002 Pakistani general election, the PML-N performed poorly, only winning 9.4% of the popular vote and gaining seats for only 14 out of 272 elected members, the worst defeat since its inception in 1988. Hashmi was removed from the party's presidency after his controversial remarks towards the country's armed forces. In an indirect party election, Shahbaz Sharif was elected as the party's new president, and the party's leadership shifted its base to London, England. In 2006, the party signed a cooperative declaration with its rival Pakistan Peoples Party to outline and promote a new democratic culture in the country. Known as the Charter of Democracy, the document was signed by Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto in London, and they announced their opposition to Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz. In the 2008 general election, the party won urban votes and dominated the provisional assembly of Punjab Province. They secured a total of 91 seats in the state parliament, just second to the Pakistan Peoples Party, which won 121 seats, and the parties agreed on forming a coalition government. The PML-N called for the impeachment of President Pervez Musharraf, and successfully ousted him from the presidency and exiled him to the United States in 2008. However, before long, Nawaz Sharif announced his support for and leadership of the Lawyers' Movement to restore the suspended famed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in 2008. In 2011, the PML-N established a branch in Kashmir Province to participate in Kashmir's general elections.
caption: Javed Hashmi presided the party from 2001–05.
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