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Flash Note: Pakistan Politics: Anti-graft watchdog announces Verdict against former PM and his daughter

• National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has just announced the much awaited verdict on one of Panama’s on-going corruption references (Avenfield which pertains to the purchase of four flats in Park Lane, London) against the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family.
• In its decision today, NAB indicts Nawaz Sharif and his daughter where the anti-graft watchdog announced 10-Year imprisonment for Nawaz Sharif (with 8mn pounds fine) and for Maryam Nawaz (with 2mn pounds fine), 7-Year imprisonment. The court has also announced to confiscate the Avenfield property in favor of Federal Government. We await for further clarification from legal experts for review/appeal (if any) of this announcement in higher courts.
• The Avenfield reference was among those filed by NAB against the former PM and his children on Supreme Court's (SC) orders in its landmark Jul 28 2017 Panama case verdict which disqualified Sharif for lifetime.
• To note, the ousted PM and his daughter had filed an application with the court, seeking a 7-day delay in the verdict announcement in light of Nawaz Sharif’s ailing wife Kulsoom Nawaz which was rejected by the accountability court earlier today. Nawaz Sharif and his daughter are currently in London.
• Unless Nawaz Sharif and his family come back to Pakistan and face the announced charges, today’s judgment will likely dent PML-N’s popularity, we believe. To highlight, PML-N’s popularity graph has come down by 10ppts in 2H2018 as per the recently revealed Gallup Pakistan Survey. The announced decision has also rendered void Maryam Nawaz’s eligibility to contest Pakistan’s general elections 2018.
• The popularity which PML-N lost as per the survey was due to the undecided voters, which we believe PML-N will lose against today’s judgment. Moreover, in our report titled, ‘PTI Likely to Lead the Electoral Battleground’, published on 2 Jul 2018, we stated that the sympathy vote factor will not drastically alter PML-N’s chances of winning more than 80-90 seats in Pakistan’s upcoming general elections 2018. We maintain our view of 75% probability of PTI’s led Govt.