LAHORE/ISLAMABAD: While a British daily Guardian sees PMLN supremo Nawaz Sharif “on the brink of a fourth term” as premier, the An Arab News says he is hotly favoured to lead his PML-N to victory.
“There is a sense among many people that the outcome is already predetermined,” Samina Yasmeen, a fellow from the Australian Institute of International Affairs, told Guardian.
It was an alleged backroom deal made with Pakistan’s power that be that enabled Sharif’s return from exile and he is widely regarded as its “selected” candidate for prime minister, making him a clear frontrunner.
For those who view Sharif as one of the few experienced politicians able to finally bring Pakistan out of its long-running economic crisis, his imminent return is being met with relief. His focus on the campaign trail has been on bringing jobs back and food prices down.
“We want Nawaz Sharif because we are faced with an economic crisis and whenever the Sharifs come into power, they have brought stability to Pakistan,” said Sana Saleem from Lahore. “The country is in a very bad shape and I believe it can only be managed by Sharif’s party. We don’t have any other option than him.”
Others have expressed concern that Sharif’s return would do little to ease the establishment’s influence or break the dominance of the same few political dynasties who have run Pakistan for almost half a century.
Former prime minister Imran Khan, is behind bars and unable to run in the election, leading to accusations of pre-poll rigging.
Sharif’s career began when he was plucked from relative obscurity by Gen Zia-ul-Haq, the military leader who ruled as president for a decade from 1978. Sharif was elected prime minister in 1990 and it was then that he began building a reputation for economic capability. After coming to blows with army leadership, however, he was forced to resign in what would become a recurring pattern over the next three decades.
“Like most Pakistani political leaders, Nawaz Sharif is not anti-military establishment, he is a product of military patronage,” a close political ally said. “He never started a grassroots political movement against the military. He only talks about civilian supremacy when he is thrown out of power, until they offer him a deal to come back.”
“There is a history of Nawaz Sharif repeatedly being brought back by the military at intervals when they thought he was the candidate to get what they wanted done,” said Yasmeen.
As well as carrying out Pakistan’s first nuclear tests, Sharif built significant bridges with India during during his second term in office, despite his past inclinations to the contrary, realising the economic potential of building ties and opening up trade. He established an unprecedented rapport with his Indian counterpart, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and the two countries signed the Lahore declaration, pledging to avoid nuclear conflict.
But after the Kargil war between India and Pakistan in 1999, Sharif found himself at the centre of a blame game and his relationship with the then military top brass disintegrated. He was removed in a coup by Gen Pervez Musharraf and sentenced to 10 years in jail, but was allowed to flee into exile in Saudi Arabia where he lived for almost a decade.
Democratic processes were largely suspended in Pakistan under Musharraf, who imposed two states of emergency during his rule. But after Sharif was allowed to return from exile in 2008, he once again won the 2013 election. Eventually a familiar discord emerged between him and the powers that be, however, and he began to vocalise his frustration. His downfall was orchestrated in 2017.
Once the then powerful quarters decided he wasn’t performing according to their expectations, it was a slippery slope, said Yasmeen. “First he was disqualified, then banned from politics, then arrested and jailed for corruption.”
Sharif was sentenced to a decade in jail for corruption, just before the 2018 election that would bring the former cricket star to power for the first time in an election widely seen as rigged. With Khan, the so-called “blue-eyed boy” of the establishment, in place as prime minister, Sharif went into exile in the UK, his political rehabilitation seemingly beyond revival.
Few alliances in Pakistani politics have fallen apart as dramatically as that between Khan and the military. He was toppled from power in April 2022, eventually arrested in August and has since been jailed in three separate cases.
Pakistan’s economy meanwhile continued into freefall, causing widespread poverty, hunger and anger. Instability has been worsened by a surge in terrorist attacks by militant Islamist groups.
With few other options, Sharif was brought back from the cold. Since then, a series of favourable verdicts have overturned all past convictions against him, clearing his path back to power.
“The establishment believes they need Nawaz Sharif to take the country out of this economic mess,” said Absar Alam, a political analyst. “Their project with Imran Khan failed badly, so now they’ve turned back to Sharif who at least has a better economic record. He’s known for investing in infrastructure and creating stability and could help rebuild essential relations with the US, China and India that were harmed badly under Khan.”
Sharif’s main pledges on the campaign trail have been focused on the economy and offering a “message of peace” to India, while insisting the election will be free and fair, Guardian concludes.
Arab News reports that Nawaz Sharif is a fiscal conservative and champion of economic liberalisation and free markets.
He oversaw the privatization of several key state enterprises — including banks and energy producers — in a process critics say was riven by corruption.
He was also one of the key drivers of the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that has underpinned relations between Islamabad and Beijing in the last decade.
He was premier when Pakistan announced in 1998 that it had become a nuclear-armed power, weeks after India did the same. One by one his convictions have been overturned or quashed in recent weeks, leaving the “Lion of Punjab” with the chance to roar again.