Adil Najam
Former Prime Minister and PML(N) leader Nawaz Sharif is back in Pakistan.
Reportedly he landed in Lahore to a large reception by his supporters and was escorted to a special bullet proof car that had been brought for him. According to The News:
A special plane carrying the PML-N Chief Nawaz Sharif, his brother Shahbaz Sharif and other family members arrived in Lahore from the holy city of Madina on Sunday evening. The convoys of PML-N workers arrived in Lahore to accord rousing welcome to Sharifs. Large welcome banners and pictures of Sharif brothers have been displayed at several places in Lahore. The special plane Boeing777 carried Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif along with 26 members of their family from the holy city of Madina.
The central and provincial leaders of PML-N, lawyers and members of civil society have arrived to receive Sharifs at Lahore Airport. Nawaz Sharif is expected to first visit Data Darbar in a procession and address a public meeting. Security had been tightened in Lahore especially on the airport ahead of arrival of the PML-N leader. Provincial home department has allowed only hundred party leaders to receive Sharifs at the airport, party sources claimed.
According to sources, bullet-proof cars for Sharifs reached in Lahore last night from Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, the home department said that the authorities have decided to give free hand to Nawaz Sharif but he has not been permitted for holding a public meeting and rally.
Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and other family members will be transported to home from the airport, a home department statement said. However, thousands of PML-N workers succeeded in arriving airport by crossing the barricades put up by police. On this occasion, the workers raised slogans both in favour of Nawaz Sharif and against the government.
Readers would remember from our prior posts that in August the Supreme Court of Pakistan had ruled that he could, in fact, return to Pakistan despite whatever ‘deal’ he had made with Gen. Musharraf at teh time of his original flight to Saudi Arabia. However, when he did return to the country in September, he was unceremoniously and dramatically deported back to Saudi Arabia with theatrics which rivaled his own attempts not to let Gen. Musharraf land in Pakistan many moons ago.
Now it turns out that he has made yet another ‘deal’ with Gen. Musharraf which has enabled his return.
It is not fully clear what the ‘terms’ of this deal are. Nor what the Musharraf-Nawaz Sharif deal mean
s for the earlier Musharraf-Benazir deal that had enabled her return some weeks back. Nor, in fact, is it clear what what his return (and the fact that now both Benazir and Nawaz Sharif are back in Pakistan) will mean for the future of Pakistan’s politics and the (supposed) forthcoming elections.
In despair, one even wonders if it means anything at all? Or is this just one more drama in the string of topi dramas that have come to define our distraught and fractured polity?
pejamistri:
I have a question. When would the civil society have enough pressure to start hold the Army accountable and stop all this fraud of DHAs?
Now the government spokesman is saying that uniform or no uniform, the war against terror would continue. The government is now belying its own claims that wardi was essential to control the terrorists.
So I gave an example of Mrs. Amna Janjua and along with her 20 or so lonely ladies standing in front of the Parliament building, Another example is the anchors of different tv channels like Shahid Masood , Talat Hussein etc. Why would they keep on saying the things which does not suit the general, because of pressure from “civil society” viewers, they need to sell their programs and acceptance of their programs in general public is what they say in those programs and this is “civil society” pressure.
Another example why would the lawyers come out on the street when CJ was removed, pressure of “civil society” which are they themselves, they had to come out, there was no other option for them it was the pressure that was unbearable, and then why 50 judges won’t take oath, there was no problem to general because of 90% of these judges who did not take oath. But these judges were under pressure from the “civil society” , from their acquanitences , from the print media , from the lawyers and above all from within themselves.
And finally I tell you about a 73 year old lady saying:
“kar lee jitni hakoomat karni thee, akhir kab tak karay ga”
” 63 saal ka hoo gaya hai, kabhi tu maray ga”
pejamistri:
Astonishingly we both have a convergence of views on Musharraf’s doffing off his uniform.
But one thing I have not been able to figure out is what really is the civil society?
@ahmad shahid,
This is perhaps the most significant achievment of Pakistan civil society in the last sixty years. In 1988, General Zia was never under such a pressure from public to doff his uniform or allow the democracy to work. He was killed not because there was unbearable civil society pressure. And then in 1971, Yahaya Khan had to leave because of the breakup of the country, and perhaps a little bit closer to the current situation was Ayub who had to leave because of some civil society pressure but I can not comment more on that.
IF (and this is a big IF) General does remove his uniform tomorrow , then that will be the single biggest achievement of the struggle of people, and I am sure it will be irreversible as because of those forces (free media, easy access to history, courageous civil society, irreversible actions of Judiciary and so many other) no future general will feel as easy to grab the power as Pervez Musharraf, Zia ul Haq, Yahya Khan, Ayub Khan felt.
Faraz:
Even in Pakistan judges have got that himmat in 60 years. In a few years judges in Egypt might get the same courage too. By the way there is emergency in Egypt since 1981 when Anwar Saadat was assissinated. Now there are indicatons that the emergency might be lifted next year, after 27 years. Its very difficult for the courts to work properly under emergency.
Faraz:
You have raised some very pertinent questions.
In fact I have though a lot about restriction on serving for more than two terms, or 8 to 10 years as in the USA or even less, fives years as in Mexico. But there is no restriction on PMs in UK yet Tony Blair had to leave after 10 years. In Pakistan no one has survived for more than 11 consecutive years, and had the military not pre-maturely overthrown BB and NS, they might not still be hangin around. So let the political process continue without breaks and in Pakistan it would eject unwanted people after 8 - 11 years as history bears it out.
True in Pakistan opposition is very strong but that has only emerged with the coming of ZAB in 1967, otherwise all politicians would just fall into line once the COAS would say “houshiar baash”.
There is very strong opposition in Egypt as well in the form of brotherhood and it has been fighting for the last so many years and haven’t succeeded. But I am quite sure that if Mubarak does one major blunder he would be gone for good.
Another country where the real opposition is very weak is Iran. All the candidates are picked up by the spiritual leader of Iran yet the President can’t survive beyond eight years. Now it could be argued that they have it because they have laws against it. But in many countries where there are laws that limit time period in the government, laws are changed to accomodate individual people.
Pakistan has its own set of laws but they couldn’t stop military takeovers. Similarly any such laws won’t work in the future. But Pakistan has the distinction of throwing people out or making them lame duck as Musharraf is now going to become.
Nawaz says Itezaz is a hero and PML(N) also supports his candidacy for election.
This cross party support for individuals based on their contribution is unprecedented in recent Pakistan history as far as I am aware.