Editorial
Nawaz Sharif returns to be deported
General Musharraf's predicament grows
Much drama has gone on in Pakistan's politics since March this year, when President Pervez Musharraf attempted to sack the country's chief justice. That move, as we now know, clearly backfired. Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry came roaring back once he was restored to his position by his peers in the Supreme Court. He then did not waste much time letting Pakistanis know how he intended to handle the military ruler who had tried to send him packing. He proved instrumental in accepting a petition from exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif that he be permitted to return home.
Sharif came back home on Monday morning only to be deported to Saudi Arabia hours later. General Musharraf insisted that Sharif had to fulfill his part of a 'deal' he had made with the regime back in 2000 to stay in Saudi Arabia for ten years instead of coming back. What the president failed to realise was that his own position was no longer what it had been in 2000, to the extent that in recent weeks he has been forced to try working out a power-sharing agreement with another exiled former premier, Benazir Bhutto. Besides, Sharif had the instrument of the Supreme Court judgement in his favour. Against such a backdrop, the president's desperation about not having Sharif back in Pakistan was made manifest when he invited Saudi and Lebanese representatives to Islamabad to help persuade the former leader to stay out of his country.
Nawaz Sharif, not an ideal democrat himself, nevertheless demonstrated considerable courage in refusing, upon landing in Islamabad, to be deported to Saudi Arabia. He was then detained and whisked away to be eventually sent back to Saudi Arabia. That again is a sign of the president's increasing nervousness. He and his government have worsened the case for themselves through placing the whole of Pakistan in a state of turmoil only because Sharif was coming back to his country.
By deporting Sharif once again General Musharraf has only made the situation even more confusing and put Pakistan's image in an adverse light. It is certainly a setback for efforts towards restoring democracy in Pakistan.
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