Sharif may return home only by end-November

By IANS

Lahore/London : Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, permitted by the Supreme Court to return home from exile, has cautiously postponed his plans to do so till end-November – even as he has vowed to contest the parliamentary elections.


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“Our party (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz) is preparing to contest the elections… I will be leading the campaign,” he told reporters in London soon after the Supreme Court delivered its verdict.

At the same time, he was also evasive on his moves vis-a-vis his rival and another exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who has been talking to President Pervez Musharraf about a possible power-sharing deal.

Appearing to distance himself from Bhutto, Sharif said he would return to Pakistan after consultations with his party’s leadership as also with the newly formed All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM).

It was up to his party and APDM to decide whether he and Bhutto would return together, he maintained.

“It is the beginning of the end of Musharraf,” Sharif said of the Supreme Court verdict, which he termed “a victory for democracy, the rule of law and the constitution”.

However, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Niazi said Thursday that Sharif and his younger brother Shahbaz, a former Punjab chief minister, would be arrested on corruption charges on their return.

Niazi also raised the spectre of an emergency being declared in the country, saying the Supreme Court verdict could compel the government to impose “restrictions”.

In “blunt remarks” to Geo TV, Niazi said the court had become “a party in the case” and the verdict “may compel the government to impose an emergency in the country,” the Daily Times reported Friday.

The PML-N’s central executive committee is likely to meet in London in the first week of September to take a decision on when Nawaz is to return.

Muhammad Mehdi, head of the PML-N foreign affairs committee, said party workers wanted Sharif to return to Pakistan at the earliest but no “hasty decision” would be taken on this.

PML-N leaders said in Lahore that the Sharif brothers’ families had decided to return even prior to the Supreme Court verdict while the duo stayed back.

Nawaz’s eldest son Hussain Nawaz, daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Muhammad Safdar are to leave London Aug 30 for Jeddah, where they would perform Umrah and spend the last two weeks of Ramadan in Mecca.

They would also call on the Saudi royal family to thank them for their hospitality, PML (N) sources said in Lahore.

The Sharif clan has been living in exile in Saudi Arabia since 2000 under a deal worked out between the former prime minister and Musharraf.

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