The Pakistan Policy Blog

Nawaz Sharif will be returning to Pakistan on Sunday, announced his brother, Shahbaz, today on ARY One World. This confirms the reports in Pakistani papers over the week of Sharif’s imminent return to Pakistan due to Saudi pressure upon Pervez Musharraf. The deposed prime minister and head of his own faction of the Muslim League will be joined by Shahbaz and wife, Kulsoom.

Sharif’s return to Pakistan can be a healthy development for Pakistan, if channeled in the right direction. He is, however, no hero.

Nawaz speaks today of returning the military to the barracks, but his rise to political power was in large thanks to the support of Pakistan’s military-intelligence establishment. He criticizes Musharraf’s centralization of power into an ever-powerful presidency, but Sharif’s own constitutional amendments — passed through a parliament in which his party held a massive majority — were attempts at self-aggrandizement that removed checks on the premier by the president, the parliament, and the military short of a coup. Sharif speaks today of respecting judicial independence and restoring the pre-emergency judiciary, but a gang of his own party leaders and workers stormed the Supreme Court on November 28, 1997 to intimidate Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, who was presiding over a contempt of court case against Sharif. Sharif called into GEO News in its final minutes — largely using the opportunity to make some political points — but he, like Musharraf, engaged in a war on the Jang Group, GEO’s parent company.

Likewise, Benazir Bhutto, Sharif’s long-time rival, is no heroine. Deft at rising to power, Bhutto’s achievements, once there, have been largely limited to her own bank accounts and property holdings. A critic of the military’s role in politics, Bhutto has made her fair share of deals with the generals. Recently a victim of an assassination attempt, Bhutto is alleged to have involvement in that of her own brother, Murtaza. She has difficulty in responding to questions regarding the case, as this video clip vividly demonstrates.

Ironically, Pervez Musharraf has been, of late, resembling the man he deposed — Nawaz Sharif. Some of the similarities: the centralization of and removal of checks on his power, attacks on the judiciary and private media, and abysmal loss of a popular mandate. Musharraf had an eight year opportunity to bring real structural change and stability to Pakistan’s political process. His seven point agenda, which was viewed by many with much promise, lies in the same dust bin as Pakistan’s constitution. Instead of breaking Pakistan out of its destructive cycle of alternating military and civil rule, Musharraf has assimilated into the cycle, maintaining the deleterious status quo best personified by the Chaudhry cousins.

Now back to why Sharif’s return may portend good things politically for Pakistan. As I have argued before, Sharif’s return to Pakistan is necessary for structural reasons. Those left outside political deals of the past have proved to be spoilers. Pakistan needs its major power brokers — and Sharif is one of them — to play inside the arena (Pakistan) and according to the rules (constitutional + compatible norms agreed upon by the power elite). Instead of having politician X complain about military interference in politics while out of power only to use the military against politician Y when necessary, it makes more sense for the military and political elite to come to terms on guidelines — a “code of conduct,” if you will — concerning civil-military relations, executive power, judicial review, and other topics, so that institutions and authentic political competition are strengthened at the expense of Faustian bargains that each bring Pakistan closer to collapse. Sharif’s return increases the possibility of something of the sort being achieved. At the moment, however, Pakistan’s elite political culture lacks the values conducive toward a viable, consensual democracy.

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