Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif will not return to the country before the general elections, President Pervez Musharraf has said. The president exuded confidence that the ruling Pakistan Muslim League will return to power, saying the next prime minister will be from the PML. Musharraf was addressing about 170 legislators of the party, including federal ministers, at a dinner at the prime minister's House.
Former Prime minister Nawaz Sharif-led PML-N said four of its leaders --- Ahsan Iqbal, Sardar Mahtab Abbasi, Rana Tanveer Hussain and Khawaja Saad Rafique -- would rejoin the PPP-led cabinet.
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday filed his nomination papers for the October 6 presidential polls, formally launching his bid for another five-year term in the face of legal challenges and stiff protests by the opposition parties.
Opposition members hit out at the government for the introduction of the bill in a 'hurry' and 'without any consultation with stakeholders'.
As Musharraf finalised his plans for re-election, a senior minister said the general will be deemed to have been elected unopposed for another term if the opposition parties did not put up any candidate against him
Our top leaders want to see Sharif as the Prime Minister in case our party does badly in the upcoming general elections," the Dawn quoted the ruling party sources as saying in Islamabad.
Former premier Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N on Wednesday said that it would finalise its response, to a constitutional reforms package drawn up by its ally Pakistan People's Party to clip the sweeping powers of President Pervez Musharraf, by Thursday.A committee formed by Sharif to examine the package met for the second time in the day and its chairman Raja Zafrul Haq said the panel had completed reviewing two-thirds of the contents of the package.
The government claims the deal bars the deposed prime minister from entering the country before the completion of a ten-year exile.
In a sign of growing rancour between Pakistan's ruling coalition partners, Pakistan People's Party chairman Asif Ali Zardari has lashed out at Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz president Shahbaz Sharif for not taking steps to release his friend, who is in a Punjab jail for nine years on charges of drug smuggling. The PML-N president has reportedly turned down the request though his party is in power in Punjab.
Opposition parties, including the Congress, Trinamool Congress, Bharat Rashtra Party and Samajwadi Party, came together in a show of unity on Thursday and accused the Modi government of getting the second half of the budget session washed out, while asserting that if this attitude continues, the country will move towards a "dictatorship".
Imran Khan on Sunday announced that his party will resume the march to Islamabad from the same spot where he survived an assassination attempt but sustained bullet injuries during a rally in Punjab province, saying he prefers 'death instead of living the life of a slave'.
It is a pity that he does not take his youth influencer role more seriously and align his brand endorsements more responsibly, notes Kanika Datta.
A war between Pakistan and India is no more an option to resolve their disputes as both countries have become nuclear powers, a senior Pakistan leader has said. "Now that both countries have turned a nuclear power, I do not think war will be an option," Mushaid Hussain Sayed, secretary general of the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q, said.
The Pakistan prime minister will be from Pakistan People's Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz joint secretary Siddique-ul Farooq said on Friday.
The author says there was massive rigging in Pakistan polls despite a Musharraf loss
Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday hinted that his Pakistan Muslim League- N party may not be averse to an alliance with Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party in the forthcoming general elections. Sharif said that the PML-N and the PPP can explore the possibility of a coalition government after the elections. the PML-N had decided to boycott elections to express solidarity with the PPP following Bhutto's assassination. But it reversed the decision later.
Mian Javed Latif said a decision on PML-N supremo and the three-time prime minister Sharif's anticipated return will be discussed with the coalition partners.
Bhutto had earlier said that her party would contest the polls 'under protest', while Sharif has backed the All Parties Democratic Movement's decision to boycott the polls.
The Indian Sikhs were in Pakistan to to participate in the celebrations marking the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. They met Sharif, who's father hails from Jati Umra, a village near Amritsar, at his home in Lahore.
Opposition presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha on Monday filed his nomination papers for the July 18 election, with a host of leaders including Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Akhilesh Yadav and Farooq Abdullah accompanying him.
Parliament proceedings were adjourned amid ruckus and sloganeering by the Opposition members over the Adani issue.
Ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain on Tuesday said that the current emergency in Pakistan will prove to be the 'shortest ever' in the history of the country as it would be lifted within a few weeks. Hussain claimed that his advice to impose emergency was ignored months ago and hundred of deaths could have been avoided if the step was taken earlier. The emergency, imposed on Saturday by Musharraf, would be lifted within a few weeks.
Earlier this month, the parliament approved amendments in Hudood laws on rape and adultery.
sharif's deportation was one of the rare occasion when Saudi Arabia and the royal family had been openly criticised, when traditionally they have been accorded great respect, bordering sometimes on reverence.
Pakistan's Finance Minister Miftah Ismail on Monday said the government can consider importing vegetables and other edible items from India following the destruction of standing crops due to massive floods, three years after Islamabad downgraded trade ties with New Delhi over the Kashmir issue.
Posters of General Musharraf will be put up in cities, towns and villages across the country. PML leaders will also organise seminars and public meetings to convince the public to vote for the president.
The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader and former Punjab chief minister is accused of ordering the murder of five men in an 'engineered' police encounter in 1999.
Saudi Arabia has assured Nawaz Sharif that it will take up the issue of his "exile" and "deportation" with Pakistan after Eid-ul-Fitr, the deposed premier's party has claimed.
The VIP cells of Attock jail in Punjab province were being whitewashed and new curtains and furniture put in place to house former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother.
Shouting slogans against President Pervez Musharraf, dozens of volunteers of the Pakistan Muslim League in the US has asked the UN to pressurise the "military dictator" to step aside and restore democracy in the country.
'Escalation of violence in the tribal areas and Musharraf's increased physical vulnerability to another terrorist attack would be the inevitable outcome of the operation.'
Abdul Rashid Ghazi blamed the US and called the government an agent of the US.
Miandad invites Musharraf, PM Aziz to son's wedding reception
PML-N chief and former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif has decided to contest the by-election from Lahore. He will contest a seat vacated by top PML-N leader Javed Hashmi, who won from three constituencies in the last general election. Sharif last contested the election in February 1997 from his Gawalmandi constituency in Lahore. He has won from the constituency five times consecutively.
Musharraf, who appeared defiant in the face of criticism over the crisis and violence in Karachi, asked coalition members in unequivocal terms to prepare for the next general election without bothering about the current situation.
A Pakistani judge on Saturday cancelled former premier Imran Khan's arrest warrants in the Toshakhana corruption case and allowed him to go home without indicting him, amidst clashes between his supporters and police outside the court complex in Islamabad.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf asserted May 11 that former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif would not be allowed to return from exile.
'The people need to be convinced that no one will put salt in their old wounds,' says former Pakistan PM Shujaat Hussain.
But it is less adventurous. It seems, at last, that in its eighth decade, Pakistan has settled into being a parliamentary democracy just like Bangladesh has and like we have always been, observes Aakar Patel.
