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?
If you are talking about a competent finance minister, then I think Sartaj Aziz would beat Shaukat Aziz hands down. Shaukat is very over rated. Yes, he would qualify as a good advisor on the banking system, but the finance minister should be an economist.
On corruption, if you factor the amount of money that came to Pakistan after 911 and compare the economic performance with the 1990s (when very little money was coming from abroad), you might come to the conclusion that the corruption under Mush has not been less.
I think corruption has nothing to do with development. Chinese are one of the most corrupt, yet China is rising.
The link again
http://tinyurl.com/2kg6p5
Zeitgeist part 3 of 3 from Google Video
(The global story behind the local story
@faraz
Comparison is not between india and Pakistan, comparison is between the changed circumstances after 9/11. As a matter of fact India did not recieve anything in terms of aid or payments for “war on terror”. The changed circumstances were stricter controls on off-shore money transfer, which helped both India and Pakistan to have constant forex inflow from expats.
Pakistan on top of that recieved huge payments in terms of debt revision, aid and payments for war on terror. However Pakistan government squandered that money and in real terms Pakistan economy has actually recesssed not grown.
Indian politicians are as corrupt as their pakistani counterparts, but despite all of their corruption India achieved highest growth rate.
So it is a myth that general and his government were not corrupt as a matter of fact all the politicians combined corruption can not match the corruption of general and his cronies.