IHT : Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returns to Pakistan

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returns to Pakistan

By Carlotta Gall | November 25, 2007

LAHORE, Pakistan: Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan arrived home from exile to a tumultuous welcome at the Lahore airport Sunday evening, providing a new rallying point for the country's disillusioned opposition and setting the stage for an overnight shift of the political scene.

Hundreds of supporters whistled and cheered, hoisting Sharif and his brother Shahbaz on their shoulders through ranks of wary riot police officers.

"I have come to save this country," Sharif said from on top of a radio cab desk in the arrivals hall. "I have come to fulfill the responsibility that is given me." But few in the crowd could hear him, so loud was the chanting and cheering from supporters. "Long live! Long live! Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif!" they shouted.

The bitterest rival of the president of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, Sharif was returning eight years after his government was overthrown by the general and he was thrown into prison and later sent into exile.

His attempt to return to the country in September was met with a massive police crackdown, and he was immediately deported on the orders of Musharraf, who has repeatedly said he would not allow Sharif back to contest parliamentary elections.

Yet in a sign of the rapidly changing political environment in Pakistan, and after Saudi Arabia, which has been the host of Sharif for much of the last seven years, interceded on the former prime minister's behalf, Musharraf relented this week and agreed to allow Sharif and his brother to return.

A heavy police deployment tried to prevent a large crowd from forming at the airport and along the route into town, but it did not try to restrain Sharif or break up the gathering of his supporters. Police vehicles provided him with an escort into the city of Lahore.

Sharif is a rich industrialist from Lahore who gained enormous national popularity as prime minister when he conducted Pakistan's first nuclear explosions, in 1998. His return came with barely one day left for candidates to file their nomination papers for parliamentary elections, is likely to create immediate and profound change in the political situation here.

Sharif represents the most formidable challenge to Musharraf's remaining in power as president for another five-year term, since unlike the other former prime minister and opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, Sharif has publicly ruled out doing any deal with the general and has called for his removal from power and criticized his imposition of emergency rule.

"These conditions are not conducive to free and fair elections," Sharif said at the airport, The Associated Press reported. "I think the constitution of Pakistan should be restored, and there should be rule of law."

Sharif's unimpeded return suggested that Musharraf and his ruling party, a faction of Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League, was resigned to his political comeback. Analysts say the faction that has backed Musharraf for the past five years is likely to suffer the most from Sharif's return.

Bruce Riedel, a former Clinton administration official and member of the National Security Council who negotiated with Sharif on many occasions, characterized his return as a major setback for Musharraf.

"Being forced to so accept Sharif's return from exile shows how much power Musharraf has lost in the last few months," Riedel said.

The two men loathed each other, said Riedel, who is now a senior fellow at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution in Washington, and Musharraf referred to Sharif as a "fascist" in his memoirs published last year.

As prime minister, Sharif chose Musharraf as head of the army. But he became disillusioned and uncomfortable with the general over the army's actions in Kashmir. Sharif tried to depose Musharraf from head of the army position by refusing to allow the general's plane to land when Musharraf was returning from a trip abroad on Oct. 12, 1999.

When Musharraf's plane finally landed, the general promptly staged a bloodless coup against Sharif and convicted him on hijacking charges.

Now Sharif would be seeking revenge, Riedel said.

"Sharif plans to lead a united opposition and banish Musharraf into exile," he said.

In his first words to his supporters Sunday, Sharif reiterated that he had not done any deal to return and would put an end to the politics of backroom deals.

"My deal is with you people," he said. "My heart says that there will be a change and the poor will get employment."

Sharif's return from Saudi Arabia was negotiated in the last few days, when Musharraf made a surprise visit to Saudi Arabia, where Sharif has been living since his deportation in September. The Pakistani leader asked the Saudi leader, King Abdullah, to keep Sharif in exile until after the elections, scheduled for Jan. 8, but the Saudi leader made it clear that he no longer wanted to be taking sides in Pakistan's politics, according to politicians close to the government.

Sharif's party has and an alliance of opposition parties have called for a boycott of the parliamentary elections unless the de facto martial law imposed by Musharraf three weeks ago is lifted within days.

Raja Ashfaq Sarwar, secretary general of the Pakistan Muslim League in Punjab Province, said that Sharif had called a meeting Thursday of an umbrella group of opposition parties, known as the All Parties Democratic Movement, to discuss whether the parties should participate in the election that many of them have called illegitimate.

The meeting at Sharif's farmhouse in Raiwind, just outside of Lahore, would include all the major opposition parties, including Bhutto's, the Pakistan People's Party, if its members chose to come, Sarwar said.

Sarwar said that parliamentary and provincial assembly candidates of Sharif's party faction would file nominating papers by the Monday deadline set by Musharraf. That deadline is considered to favor the president because of the short notice. But Sarwar said the filings were "immaterial" because they could be withdrawn easily if the opposition parties decided to boycott.

Even with de facto martial law in force, with restrictions on the media and political parties, including the right to assembly, opposition parties are divided over whether to boycott the elections. Bhutto filed her nomination papers Sunday in her home city of Karachi.

Although Bhutto's party has not made a final decision on a boycott, it is expected to contest the elections rather than risk having no representation in the new assemblies. If the Pakistan People's Party, which is probably the largest political party in the country, contests the elections, Sharif's call for an opposition boycott would founder.

Officials of Sharif's faction, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, said that hundreds of party workers were arrested Saturday night and Sunday morning.