Former Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, will make his second homecoming trip tomorrow.
During his first return trip to Pakistan, he was greeted at the airport by police who placed him on a return flight back to Saudi Arabia, where he has been in exile since 2000. Sharif, who was found guilty of tax evasion and treason, entered into an agreement of ten years of exile in Saudi Arabia.
Sharif's government was overthrown in a bloodless coup in 1999, which was led by current president of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, who just won approval from the newly installed Pakistani supreme court in regards to his extra-constitutional third term as the country's president and de facto dictator.
The return of Nawaz Sharif will come on the heels of another ex-patriot and former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, who also returned home to Pakistan from self-imposed exile in Dubai, last month. Since her return, she has been subjected to assassination attempts and home arrest. She hopes to stand for election in the forthcoming Pakistani parliamentary elections. Those elections, however, have been placed on hold since Musharraf imposed martial law and suspended the constitution. Musharraf has made bold plans for this weekend. Included in those plans are his pledge to resign as the chief of the army as he steps into his unprecedented third term as president.
Will Sharif actually make it out of the airport this time? Only time will tell. Maybe his flight will be early and Musharraf will be caught off-guard.
No comments:
Post a Comment