Sharif joins polls race

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Pakistan’s ex-premier Nawaz Sharif plotted tactics with key aides Monday as he sought to capitalise on his hero’s welcome home from exile to spur opposition to President Pervez Musharraf.

Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf in a coup in 1999, was due to file his nomination papers for general elections, despite warning his party may end up boycotting the January 8 vote.

After a procession from the airport to his city residence that turned into an all-night party, Sharif spent time recovering and consulting relatives and senior party officials in his home in the eastern city of Lahore.

After consultation Sharif filed his nomination papers yesterday for general elections on January 8, a day after he returned from exile, an AFP reporter saw.

Dozens of supporters showered Sharif with rose petals as he arrived at a courtroom in the eastern city of Lahore where candidates were registering for the vote, the correspondent said.

“We have received Nawaz Sharif’s nomination papers,” elections officer Raja Qamaruz Zaman told AFP.

His brother Shahbaz also filed his papers for the vote, which the ex-prime minister has said his party may yet boycott if they are held under a state of emergency imposed by President Pervez Musharraf.

The crowd outside the building chanted “Go Musharraf, go!” as Sharif, dressed in his trademark white tunic and black waistcoat, left the building after filing his papers.

Pakistan’s attorney general Malik Muhammad Qayyum said earlier however that Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf in 1999, is likely to be barred from standing because of previous convictions against him.

Meanwhile, officials indicated military ruler Musharraf would swear himself in as a civilian president Thursday after first resigning from the army.

That would meet a key demand of the international community outraged by his state of emergency, now well into its fourth week despite his promise of free and fair elections.

“My information is that he will take the oath as a civilian president on Thursday,” Attorney General Malik Muhammad Qayyum told AFP.

Qayyum said the defence ministry was expected Monday or Tuesday to issue a formal notification of his impending resignation from the army.

“We expect today, hopefully, the notification will be issued,” Musharraf’s spokesman Rashid Qureshi said.

“If it is received today, then one can expect the handing over and taking over (as chief of army staff) could take place tomorrow or the day after,” he told AFP.

That would allow for the swearing-in on Thursday, after the purged Supreme Court last week rubber-stamped his presidency for another five years.

Sharif’s return, just over a month after another ex-premier Benazir Bhutto flew home from exile, throws Pakistan’s political power-struggle wide open and further ratchets up the pressure on Musharraf.

Benazir said Monday she was ready to form an alliance with Nawaz Sharif as she filed her papers to contest upcoming general elections.

If he forms a proposed alliance with Benazir he could cause major problems for Musharraf and secure defections from the president’s ruling party.

But Musharraf’s willingness to allow Sharif to return may indicate that the president hopes to split the opposition vote.

Sharif denied any such understanding: “I have made no deal with Musharraf, my deal is with the people of Pakistan,” he told jubilant supporters welcoming him home late Sunday.

Benazir, filing her own nomination papers in her family’s ancestral home in Larkana, deep in rural southern Pakistan, reached out to Sharif.

“We are ready to forge an alliance with all moderate political parties. We welcome Nawaz Sharif’s return to Pakistan. It will strengthen the democratic and political culture,” she told reporters.

“We are concerned that elections will be rigged but we don’t want to leave the field empty.”

However, analysts have questioned whether any alliance between Sharif and Benazir, who have been bitter past rivals, will stand the test of time.

Sharif is a religious conservative while Benazir, a secular leader, is seen by the United States — keen to preserve Pakistan’s role in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban — as pro-Western.

More crucial is the question of whether they will boycott the vote.

Staying away would rob Musharraf of the chance to portray the election to his critics around the world as evidence he is moving the country back toward democracy.

Taking part, opponents say, would be tantamount to legitimising emergency rule.

However, Qayyum warned earlier that Sharif could be ineligible because he had been sentenced to life in jail on corruption and hijacking charges before he was banished in 2000.

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