During a
speech to international business leaders here in late November, Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif shocked the country's powerful religious community by calling for
a new, more "liberal" Pakistan.
Amid an outcry, within hours, Sharif's staff was downplaying the speech, saying he didn't really mean to imply Pakistan should become more like the West.
But so far this year, Sharif and his party have defied Islamic scholars by unblocking access to YouTube, pushing to end child marriage, enacting a landmark domestic violence bill, and overseeing the execution of a man who had become a symbol of the hatred that religion can spawn here.
Amid an outcry, within hours, Sharif's staff was downplaying the speech, saying he didn't really mean to imply Pakistan should become more like the West.
But so far this year, Sharif and his party have defied Islamic scholars by unblocking access to YouTube, pushing to end child marriage, enacting a landmark domestic violence bill, and overseeing the execution of a man who had become a symbol of the hatred that religion can spawn here.
The shift in tone can be traced to Sharif's ambitious economic agenda,
the influence his 42-year-old daughter has over him, and his awareness that
Pakistan remains the butt of jokes, according to his friends, senior government
officials and analysts.
With strong support from rural voters and the
religious community, Sharif returned as prime minister in 2013 after his party,
Pakistan Muslim League-N, won a decisive majority in parliamentary elections.
Sharif, who had also served two terms as prime minister in the 1990s, has long been associated with Pakistan's stodgy conservative establishment. And the election of a man rumored to go to bed shortly after dark was widely viewed as a sign that Pakistan was settling into a period of stale governance.
But Sharif, 66, and his PML-N lawmakers are now challenging Pakistan's religious community, charting a new path for their party while unsettling a constituency that includes hundreds of thousands of Islamic clerics.
Sharif, who had also served two terms as prime minister in the 1990s, has long been associated with Pakistan's stodgy conservative establishment. And the election of a man rumored to go to bed shortly after dark was widely viewed as a sign that Pakistan was settling into a period of stale governance.
But Sharif, 66, and his PML-N lawmakers are now challenging Pakistan's religious community, charting a new path for their party while unsettling a constituency that includes hundreds of thousands of Islamic clerics.