Pakistan talks in bid to freeze out Sharif

Pakistan’s president is engaged in last-ditch talks with Benazir Bhutto, another banished former leader, about a pact that could save his troubled re-election bid – and leave Nawaz Sharif out in the cold.

Former prime minister Sharif’s brief return to Pakistan reignited a bitter feud with the country’s army ruler. He flew into Islamabad from London in defiance of president general Pervez Musharraf, the man who toppled his government in a 1999 coup and sent him into exile in Saudi Arabia.

The decision to send Sharif back to Saudi Arabia is sure to be challenged in court. However, it consolidated Mr Musharraf’s determination to prevent Sharif from waging his much-touted “decisive battle against dictatorship” on home soil.

A law graduate and industrialist’s son, Sharif attended an elite Roman Catholic high school and the prestigious Government College in his native city of Lahore.

He entered politics during the martial law regime of General Zia-ul Haq, Pakistan’s previous military ruler, whose patronage propelled him to the post of chief minister of Punjab, the country’s dominant province.

But in two spells in the prime minister’s office in the 1990s, Zia’s former pupil feuded with successive army chiefs and presidents until his attempt to fire Musharraf backfired in the form of a rapid military takeover.

Analysts describe Sharif as a patient networker who has preserved his power base in Punjab. With Bhutto in talks with the military-led government ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections, he can present himself as the clearest alternative.

Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a political scientist at Lahore University of Management Sciences, said Sharif had “shown his resolve to be with the people and his party workers to promote democracy in the country. He has re-established his credibility and shown he is very serious about his political career.

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But Sharif may not enjoy freedom of movement and speech inside Saudi Arabia, Rais said, leaving him dependent on second-tier leaders in his party to continue the struggle.

Few credit Sharif as a political visionary. But he has charisma and a popular touch rare among the current crop of Pakistani politicians.

Many of the battered yellow taxis rattling around Pakistani cities date from a well-remembered microfinance scheme that Sharif launched in the 1990s to create jobs for a population that now stands at 160 million.

At 56, he has also remade his looks: Once nearly bald, he now sports a full head of dark hair.

Critics still remember his vindictiveness toward political foes, however, and the corruption allegations that dogged his two governments. They accuse him of sharing the authoritarian mind-set of the generals he now says should retreat to the barracks.

Elected to a second term by a landslide in 1997, Sharif did democracy a service by abolishing the presidential power to fire the government – a right exercised three times in the 1990s that Musharraf has since reintroduced.

Yet he went on to force both a president and a Supreme Court chief justice from office and tried to enforce such fierce party discipline that even some former colleagues describe him as dictatorial.

Sharif also presided over a flare-up of tension with India, culminating in Pakistan’s first acknowledged nuclear tests in 1998, although he also embarked on a process of détente.

Differences over Pakistan’s struggle with India over Kashmir contributed to Sharif’s attempt to fire Musharraf in 1999, just a year after he had appointed him.

The move backfired spectacularly, with the military seizing power for the third time in Pakistan’s 60-year history. Sharif, accused of denying landing rights to a plane carrying Musharraf that was short on fuel, was jailed but later released and sent to Saudi Arabia after pledging not to return for a decade.

To take his revenge, Sharif has allied himself with a coalition of six Islamist parties vehemently opposed to Pakistan’s close alliance with Washington and Nato’s war in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Sharif has sought to calm doubts about his commitment to battling the Taliban and al-Qaida.

“You can’t fight terror as the way Mr Musharraf is fighting,” Sharif said in a recent interview on CNN.

“He needs the threat of terror for his own survival. We will fight out of conviction.”