Supreme Court allows ex-PM Sharif to return to Pakistan
PAKISTAN: Pakistan’s embattled military ruler has suffered another
setback with a Supreme Court ruling that former Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif, an archrival ousted in a bloodless coup eight years ago, can
return from exile before upcoming elections.
Sharif’s return would intensify pressure for the restoration of
democracy and complicate President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s efforts to
hold on to power.
The U.S.-allied military leader is under growing pressure to crack
down on Islamic extremists battling NATO troops in Afghanistan, and
faces formidable legal hurdles as he seeks a fresh presidential term.
“It’s a quantum leap forward in the march toward democracy,” Talat
Masood, a former army general turned political analyst, said of
Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling.
“It’s a great setback to President Musharraf and the way he was
thinking and puts him further on the defensive,” Masood said. “It’s
becoming extremely difficult for him to face all these challenges at the
same time.”
The ruling was announced by Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, the chief
justice whom Musharraf recently tried but failed to fire. The episode
tarnished Musharraf and sparked mass protests that dismayed his
supporters.
Sharif, a charismatic 57-year-old who served twice as prime minister
and authorized Pakistan’s first nuclear test in 1998, and his family
“have an inalienable right to enter and remain in the country as
citizens of Pakistan,” Chaudhry said in the brief verdict.
Government officials said they would respect the ruling, which Sharif
supporters outside the court celebrated with dancing and by slaughtering
six goats.
However, government lawyers suggested Sharif, a fierce critic of
Musharraf, could face unspecified legal action if he returns to
Pakistan.
Sharif and Benazir Bhutto - another banished former prime minister
with big popular support who is planning a comeback - insist the general
must let them compete in year-end elections if the polls are to be
considered democratic.
They are also urging Western governments to stop relying on the
military strongman, arguing that he has failed to deliver against the
Taliban and al-Qaida.
Meanwhile State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said that while
the Supreme Court has ruled that Sharif can return to the country, “we
understand that they did not make a determination regarding past legal
charges against him.”
He referred questions about the status of legal charges against
Sharif to Pakistani legal authorities.
Earlier, Gallegos said the U.S. wants “a strengthening of Pakistan’s
democractic traditions.”
Meanwhile the party of Nawaz Sharif rejected any possibility of
reconciliation with the country’s military ruler Friday. On Friday,
Sadique al-Farooq, a senior leader of Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N
party, said “there is no chance for any reconciliation” with Musharraf.
“It is out of question,” he told The Associated Press. “Democracy and
dictatorship cannot go together.”
Al-Farooq said their party would meet in the capital, Islamabad, on
Saturday to consider dates for Sharif’s return.
Islamabad, Friday, AP |
