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?
Ahmad R. Shahid I think no one should rule a country more then 8-10 years thats what democracy is all about. Why in world leaders of Pakistan do blunders in their last days.
do you think there is any chance in near future that there will be democracy in Egypt. In Pakistan we at least have strong opposition leaders.
faraz:
Sorry I don’t agree with this contention. Since all indications are that if it were not for his own blunders Musharraf would still have been ruling Pakistan and that too in uniform. Fortunate for Russians and Egyptians, their leaders didn’t commit such big blunders, else they would be running to save their skin just like Musharraf, who by the way has lost his second skin.
“If it is assumed that people just want change and also assume that the basic nature of all humans is the same, then Russians should now be tired of Putin, after eight years of his rule, they must be tired of Mubarak and so on and so forth. ”
I am happy that people of Pakistan love change otherwise we will get life time monarchy just like they have in Egypt. I am happy that we are not that far from democracy as they are in Egypt.
pejamistri:
As regarding your comments that its the people and not the leaders or Generals, who shape history, I couldn’t agree with you more. Musharraf has been forced to doff his uniform not because NS or BB wanted that but because of the pressure of the people.
Faisal baadshah:
Can you fetch a calculator and tell your readers the anual rate of exchange rate depreciation under Mush in the two pre-911 years?
A quote from Zaidi (page 394):
“Government expenditure on education has increased from around 1.4 per cent in the 1970s, to about 2.3 per cent in the 1990s, but fell to below 2 per cent of GDP in each of the three years after 2000 (Table 17.12).”