ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — It has been a difficult few days for the party that used to run Pakistan. First, the party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, known as the P.M.L.-N., came a distant second in the national election last Wednesday, winning about half as many parliamentary seats as the party headed by Imran Khan, a former cricket star. Then Nawaz Sharif, the party’s figurehead and a former prime minister who was jailed by an anticorruption court this month, was rushed to a hospital on Sunday because of chest pains. Mr. Khan, whose campaign was said to have been backed by the military, is still trying to gather enough support to form a majority coalition in the national Parliament. But on Monday, the influential newspaper Dawn was already calling him the prime minister in waiting.

Source: New York Times July 30, 2018 13:24 UTC