Nawaz is back!

[jantobanto]

IS REALY NAWAZ SHARIF COMMING??????

 

[Neo]

Sharif plans 2nd return try to Pakistan​

By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer
Thu Nov 22, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif will make another attempt to return from exile, his party said Thursday, setting up a new confrontation with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf before Pakistan's critical parliamentary elections.

With Saudi leaders appearing to back Sharif's desire to leave Saudi Arabia, Musharraf appeared to have few options for fending off the return of a former prime minister who would also challenge pro-Western Benazir Bhutto in her bid to return to power as premier.

Sharif's plan was announced hours after the Supreme Court, with judges appointed by Musharraf, swept away the last legal obstacles to his new five-year term as president. The Election Commission was freed to certify Musharraf's re-election by legislators last month.

The U.S.-allied leader was expected to give up his dual, and powerful, post as army chief within days in hopes of cooling domestic and foreign criticism over his suspension of the constitution and assumption of emergency powers three weeks ago.

But discontent has intensified this year over Musharraf's rule, which began with a coup that ousted Sharif as prime minister in 1999. A return by Sharif, a vehement critic of the general and leader of one of the two main opposition parties, would be sure to bolster the anti-government campaign.

Presidential spokesman Rashid Qureshi declined to say what Musharraf would do if Sharif tried to enter Pakistan. Sharif was swiftly deported to Saudi Arabia when he tried to return in September.

That expulsion was supported by Saudi Arabia's government, but Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, president of Musharraf's ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q party, said Sharif now had "some deal" with Saudi authorities.

"We are ready to face him and he has to face the people" in the parliamentary elections set for Jan. 9, Hussain said on Dawn News television.

Musharraf has insisted that Sharif stay out of Pakistan until after the elections, which the West hopes will produce a moderate government able to turn the tide against Islamic militants who have shown increased strength in the tribal region along the border with Afghanistan.

Speculation that Saudi Arabia was willing to let Sharif go home had been rife since Musharraf made a surprise trip to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, for talks with King Abdullah on Tuesday.

Sharif's party said he was coming to Pakistan to lead the party in the elections. He had been calling for parties to boycott the vote, but apparently changed his mind after Bhutto's bloc and other rival opposition groups didn't take up the idea.

Bhutto said Thursday that it could take weeks for the fractious opposition to work any agreement on a boycott and that her party would file nomination papers for its candidates in the meantime.

"We don't want to give a walkover to the opposition," she told reporters in Karachi.

Sharif's party said its leader flew from the Red Sea town of Jiddah to Riyadh on a plane sent by King Abdullah on Thursday and that the two men would meet Friday. There was no confirmation from the Saudis.

In September, two days before Sharif tried to return home, Abdullah sent his intelligence chief to Islamabad to declare that the ex-premier should respect an agreement with Saudi Arabia to stay out of Pakistan for 10 years. Musharraf agreed to cancel a life sentence imposed on Sharif after the coup.

But Sharif spokesman Ahsan Iqbal said Saudi leaders had been dismayed at criticism within Pakistan of their role in that affair and didn't want to take sides in the current bitter political wrangling.

He said Musharraf's government would struggle to find somewhere else to send Sharif.

"No country will want to take such a strong political position when `Mush' is so unpopular and the whole country is protesting against him," Iqbal said. "The best (Musharraf) can do is put him in jail" for alleged corruption.

Sharif's politician brother, Shahbaz Sharif, said the party would announce Saturday when the former prime minister would return, perhaps before the end of the month.

The re-emergence of a heavyweight rival creates a new headache for Musharraf as he tries to defend the emergency powers he decreed Nov. 3 against stiff criticism at home and abroad, including from the United States, a key provider of aid.

Najam Sethi, editor of the Pakistani newspaper Daily Times, said letting Sharif return would give Musharraf a peg for defending his democratic credentials. But it also could undermine the ruling party, which is made up mainly of former Sharif supporters who deserted him after the coup, he said.

"Mr. Sharif's presence in the country would embolden many people to desert" the ruling party and split the votes of conservative secularists in the election, Sethi said.

That could "indirectly help Ms. Bhutto in a three-way fight, so it would be very significant if he were to be allowed to come back," Sethi said.

Musharraf declared the emergency just before the previous Supreme Court was to rule on complaints that the constitution bars the army chief from running for elected office. He then removed independent-minded judges and named loyalists to the court.

Authorities also took independent TV news channels off the air and arrested thousands of lawyers, opposition party supporters and human rights activists.

The government says most detainees were freed this week and Thursday's court ruling meant Musharraf could meet another demand of his critics by resigning his military post and governing as a civilian president. Attorney General Malik Mohammed said that could happen this weekend.

The U.S. has so far stood by Musharraf, a key ally in its fight against extremist groups, but it also has been the loudest voice in an international chorus calling for a quick end to emergency rule to allow free and fair elections.

The Commonwealth, a 53-nation group composed mainly of Britain and its former colonies, voted at a meeting in Uganda to suspend Pakistan's membership for after Musharraf failed to meet the association's Thursday deadline for him to lift the crackdown and quit as army chief.

The group "welcomes the release of detainees, but is concerned about the arrest of journalists and lawyers," its secretary-general, Don McKinnon, told reporters.

Pakistan was last kicked out of the organization in 1999 after Musharraf seized power in a coup. It took the country five years to be reinstated.

Sharif plans 2nd return try to Pakistan - Yahoo! News

 

[EagleEyes]

This is really interesting. Lets see what Musharraf has planned now.

 

[roadrunner]

"Nawaz, the Second Return"..sounds like a good film for the second coming of the devil. Just needs the Omen music to be played with it.

 

[HAIDER]

ISLAMABAD/LONDON, Nov 22: With a sudden change of heart on the part of the ruling Saudi family, Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has been invited to Riyadh from his ‘safe house’ in Jeddah to meet King Abdullah on Friday, and there are strong indications that he may be allowed to return to Pakistan later this month.

But even before he is given permission to leave Saudi Arabia, a new formula has been evolved through back-channel diplomacy under which Mr Shairf’s wife Kulsoom Nawaz and brother Shahbaz may return earlier, possibly by Sunday, to file their nomination papers for the coming general election.

Highly placed sources that are privy to some of the negotiations and are following the rapidly changing situation told Dawn that if this formula came through, Nawaz Sharif might delay his return, and arrive in Pakistan after Nov 26, which would be his way of avoiding participation in the Jan 8 elections.

According to agency reports, Nawaz Sharif is likely to return to Pakistan in a day or two.

Mr Sharif was expected to travel to Pakistan via London early next week, but things have moved so fast over the last 24 hours that he is now likely to go back home straight from Saudi Arabia, Nadir Chaudhry, a spokesman for the PML-N leader in London, informed Dawn on Thursday.

He denied that Gen Musharraf had allowed Nawaz to return home on the condition that he would not boycott the forthcoming elections.

On the contrary, Nadir said, President Musharraf tried to persuade King Abdullah against allowing Nawaz Sharif to go back home before the completion of the “10-year exile deal” he had signed with the Saudi authorities in 2000.

Ahsan Iqbal, a spokesman for the PML-N, refused to be drawn on the specifics of any of these developments, but admitted that all these options were possible. He told Dawn that Nawaz Sharif might return by Sunday, and there was also a possibility that Shahbaz and Kulsoom Nawaz end their exile in the first phase, and the former prime minister returns later.

“In any case”, he said, “we have called a meeting of the party’s central executive committee in Islamabad on Sunday, and are pretty confident that it will be attended by the leadership that has so far remained in exile.”

Although equally vague on the specifics, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the head of the pro-Musharraf PML-Q, told DAWN NEWS TV that if Mr Sharif returns to Pakistan before the elections, it would be a result of a “deal” with the Saudi government, and that his party would welcome the development. He said the party was prepared to take on all such challenges. “We are not afraid of him.”

The dramatic development, said a highly placed source in the government, came after President Musharraf’s meeting with the Saudi king two days ago. Although details of the meeting were not made public, sources in the Pakistan government said President Musharraf was politely told by the Saudi authorities that after Benazir Bhutto’s return, it was “extremely difficult to hold back” another former prime minister.

Once the thinking of the Saudi government became clear to officials in Islamabad, they resolved to dilute the effect of such a major change in the political atmosphere in the run-up to the elections.

According to one such source, high-level contacts at the international level led to an understanding that Mr Sharif will start toning down his rhetoric, and in the first phase would only send Shahbaz Sharif and Kulsoom Nawaz. The two would be allowed to submit their nomination papers on an assurance that Nawaz Sharif will return only after Nov 26 — the last day for filing nominations papers — and will not stand in the elections.

Although nomination papers for the Sharif brothers and Kulsoom Nawaz had already been obtained for three different constituencies in Lahore, a leader of the PML-N said, the party was open to the idea of filing papers for one or two of these leaders.

Sources in the PML-N, as well as some influential members of the PML-Q, think that a lot depended on the outcome of Friday’s meeting between Nawaz Sharif and the Saudi king in Riyadh. “Till that time the situation would remain fluid,” said one member of the PML-Q.

The news of such developments have already sent a wave of jubilation in the PML-N camp. Several senior members of the party constantly called various newspaper offices late in the night to spread the word around and the party told its workers to make arrangements for the first central executive meeting in many years in which one of the Sharifs might also be a participant.

The reports about Nawaz Sharif’s return brought anxiety to PML-Q members as most of them thought that it could change the political equation, particularly in Punjab. Most PML-Q members have remained tight-lipped on the issue, and have been praying that the development does not lead to major defections.

The reports also brought worries to members of the PPP, but some of them pointed out that perhaps Benazir Bhutto, sensing such an eventuality, had already made direct contacts with Mr Sharif to offset the impact of his return.

Although Nawaz Sharif’s return is being regarded as one of the biggest challenges faced so far by President Musharraf and his allies, some sources said it would increase the credibility of the general election.

CONSENSUS GOVT: There have also been suggestions that with Benazir Bhutto already supporting the idea of a government of national consensus, and Nawaz Sharif now softening his tone to talk about reconciliation, there is a possibility that fresh attempt could be made to assemble all major players around a negotiating table, leading to the forming of a consensus government to ensure a smooth transition to democracy.

According to analysts, Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan and pressure from the international community made the Saudi authorities review their decision to keep Nawaz Sharif in exile for another three years.

SHAHBAZ SHARIF: It is most likely that PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif would accompany his brother to Pakistan.

People who have not seen Shahbaz Sharif in public over the last three to four days said they believed he had already flown to Saudi Arabia.

He was not seen today at a very important meeting of the PML-N in front of the Commonwealth Secretariat, reinforcing speculations that he had already left London for Jeddah.

The rally was led by Ghous Ali Shah, a former Sindh chief minister, who along with three senior members of PML-N, presented a memorandum to the Commonwealth calling for lifting of the emergency and release of lawyers, journalists and political workers. The memorandum also called for lifting the ban on Geo and ARY TV channels.
Deal shadow over Sharifs’ homecoming -DAWN - Top Stories; November 23, 2007

 

[Cheetah786]

1)What are sheriff brothers Qualifications say like education to run for presidency or even a MNA.

2)And who are Saudis to tell Pakistan government what to do.

3)And why is pakistan government listening to Saudis.

4)And according to constitution of Pakistan isn't nawaz already disqualified now that he has taken the seat twice.so Bibi and him don't qualify yet they are fighting for the people of Pakistan(excuse me for one sec so i can stop laughing)And restoration of the constitution(man iam killing myself laughing)which disqualifies them both from the office.

So My question is how are they going to be able to serve the people of Pakistanrofl: i have to stop i think before i start to shed tears of joy)if they cannot run.

I wanna cry some time (tears of joy off course)when i see pakistans politicians hell bent on helping the people of country so much.but even more exciting when losers come out on streets for these thugs and get blown to peices.

IAm as iam sure you all are waiting for his return to see how many losers come out to meet him at the airport(please dont expect any suicide bombers at this rally as he is head of taliban.

 

[Spring Onion]

This time his party also needs to hire some people just like BB for Rs500 per head to come to welcome him.

BTW all those who were yesterday calling for boycotting elections now seem to be short of oxygen like a balloon as not only BB but NS party also starts obtainaing nomination papers.

BB got for Larkana.
Qazi got for Nowshera and now Nawaz also planns to come.

damn loosers can never learn to mach words with their actions.
And guess they had thought its better to be inn politics rather than getting out of scene even if they dont come to power.

atleast he clowns will be in public view to cheat and betray the innocent again and loot the country again.

 

[HAIDER]

Two lonely politician brothers are planning to comback 25th or 26th.

 

[fatman17]

Two lonely politician brothers are planning to comback 25th or 26th.

Nawaz coming on 25th Nov according to ARYoneworld news interview of little brother.
Now folks we dont want BB to have a open field to win the general elections and get a 2/3rd majority so that she can knock the incumbent president off.
What we want is that everyone wins a few seats here and there and then there is a colation govt (just like India) which cannot dictate anything to the president. the fun is just beginning.

 

[Awesome]

Nawaz doesn't need to be PM if Kulsoom or Shahbaz become PM.

 

[MastanKhan]

Hi,

But Shahbaz was offered the job for P M and he wanted his older bros permission which was not granted a few years ago. Untill very recently Nawaz talked about that deal and was not happy with the govt for offering his younger that job.

 

[Muradk]

This is really interesting. Lets see what Musharraf has planned now.

shabaz Sharif

 

[Awesome]

shabaz Sharif

My money's on Kulsoom Sharif.

Nawaz would want to keep things in the immediate family. He would also be taking a leaf out of the Clintons story.

 

[danishsaleem]

Salam,

My concern is, why Mushi gave permission, i am afraid, that something going on really missy, because Nawaz return really showing that mushi is rulling strength Internationally, and what was happen , after his uniform withdrawl.

But according to me democracy is the future of Pakistan, and army should have to go back to their barracks.

Danish saleem

 

[Awesome]

Salam,

My concern is, why Mushi gave permission, i am afraid, that something going on really missy, because Nawaz return really showing that mushi is rulling strength Internationally, and what was happen , after his uniform withdrawl.

But according to me democracy is the future of Pakistan, and army should have to go back to their barracks.

Danish saleem

Nothing is going on other than it is evident that all the drama they did for the 'fight for democracy' was aimed at getting in power.

Now they are all themselves lined up for the elections which they were calling sham. They have seen that this election might be totally free and fair so they all have a fighting chance.

Musharraf has done well to level the playing field for everyone and thus no one would come out with a 2/3rd majority.