Sharif's deportation will act against Musharraf

Islamabad, Sep 11: Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was deported to Saudi Arabia because the Saudi authorities decided to support President Pervez Musharraf, but this will bring negative results for him, a Pakistani daily has claimed.

“The fallout to the Musharraf regime of the second exile of the Sharif is also going to be negative," the Daily Times, said in its editorial.

The daily further says, “Post-exile events such as further confrontation with the supreme court are primed to play into the hands of the rejectionists in the opposition. In turn, the insistence of the ruling PML that no “deals" should be made with the PPP will now be followed by a stiffening of administrative action against the opposition leaders."

Commenting on the Supreme Court"s order in regard of Sharif, the paper said, that the Government has defied the court by sending Sharif back to Saudi Arabia.

“Will the Court go defensively literalist or will it assert its authority in the cases now before it challenging President Musharraf"s act of seeking another stint as a president in uniform from the same parliament? This will depend to some extent on how the street reacts to Sharif"s exile as that is the pattern traced by the Court"s recent activism," the editorial further said.

Finally the Government"s muscle will be tested in Punjab. In Balochistan and the NWFP the Governments are characterised by dominance of parties that may not be willing to agitate, while i Sindh, the MQM and the PPP will not be interested, although the latter will not be supportive of the government, it added.

On the reliability of the Election Commission (EC), the paper says, most of the “demands" of the opposition relating to the reliability of the EC and the inbuilt pro-government bias of the local governments are now universally owned by the people.

At the grassroots level, the provision banning the re-election of the prime minister for the third time is not popular. At the intellectual level, the persistence of Article 58-2(B) is no longer defensible, it added.

ANI
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