The return of ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif is a blow to General Musharraf, though not yet to Pakistan's military regime, reports Graham Usher from Lahore It didn't matter he was inaudible. One moment crowned Nawaz Sharif's triumphant return to Pakistan on 25 November. Bobbing like a cork on a sea of writhing shoulders and arms in the arrivals lounge of Lahore airport, he clasped his hands above his head, like a weary boxer. A smile broke over his lips. After so many defeats the loser had won. Sharif was Pakistan's last civilian prime minister, ousted in a coup in 1999. Sentenced to life imprisonment, the term was commuted to ten years in exile via the services of Saudi Arabia, with whom the Sharif family enjoyed close business ties. He tried to return in September following a ruling in his favour by Pakistan's then robust Supreme Court. He was kicked back to Jeddah after four hours marooned at Islamabad airport. At all points his nemesis was General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler. Yet on 25 November the General could do little but facilitate the second coming of the man he despises above all others. What had happened? Sharif's return is the latest squall in the storm caused by Musharraf's imposition of martial law in Pakistan on 3 November. So far from allowing him to steer events, the "emergency" shows a leader whose hand is slipping at the wheel. It also augurs a political future for Pakistan as chaotic and volatile as the scenes at Lahore airport. Only one thing is clear -- Musharraf did not want his bitterest rival to return ahead of general elections in January 2008. In September, despite the Supreme Court authorising Sharif's right of return, he prevailed on the Saudi leadership to keep his adversary away. King Abdullah agreed, and immediately regreted the decision. For the first time anyone could remember, Pakistan's press and public lambasted the monarch for taking the side of an unpopular military ruler against an elected politician. Things got worse in October, when Musharraf did allow the return of another convicted leader and former premier, Benazir Bhutto, so that she could contest elections. The media waves were again thick with the charge of double standards. And the Saudis made it clear their "understanding" with Musharraf over Sharif was no longer tenable. Finally, last week, Musharraf went to Riyadh in an effort to stay Sharif's exile at least until after the January elections. Saudi Arabia said no. Not only was Sharif returned his passport; he flew home in King Abdullah's own jet and led the motorcade through Lahore in an armoured-plated black Mercedes limousine, a farewell token from the monarch. Thirty family members accompanied him, including his mother. When Musharraf imposed martial law he gave three reasons. The first was that it would remedy international perceptions that Pakistan was a failed state. The repatriation of Sharif by Saudi Arabia -- a regime so close to Islamabad that it bought Pakistan's first fleet of F16 fighter planes -- shows how even friends now prefer Musharraf at an arm's length. The second reason was that martial law would help the Pakistan army's war against Islamic militancy. Officers concede the emergency has made no material difference to their front on the borderlands with Afghanistan, where 100,000 troops are battling a Taliban-led insurgency. And on 24 November two suicide bombers killed 18 soldiers in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, the third such hit in as many months. The third reason was to tame an "unruly" judiciary that, said Musharraf was making governance impossible. But his assault on the judiciary has only rendered the military regime more illegitimate, at least in the eyes of its people. Over half of Pakistan's superior judges have refused to recognise Musharraf's "provisional" constitution, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohamed Chaudhry. Lawyers, media workers and students are protesting. This outraged middle class was once Musharraf's core civilian constituency. There was only one place where the fates seemed to be blowing Musharraf's way -- a divided political opposition that cannot decide whether to save or sink him. On 25 November, a six-party alliance said it would boycott the elections unless Musharraf restored the constitution, reinstated the sacked judges, released political detainees and lifted curbs put on the media. But the largest opposition party, Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, is not part of the alliance and will likely ignore the decision. And Pakistan's largest Islamic party, the JUI-F, is part of the alliance and has said it will definitely ignore the decision. Can Sharif's return bring some order to this mess? Sharif is no radical. He came to politics through the patronage of Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan's most ruthless and bigoted military dictator. His main vote-bank is the country's conservative business class. And in the past he has used thugs and the army to knobble the Supreme Court and to undermine the governments of Bhutto, his arch political rival. Loyalists say eight years in exile have changed him. "He now genuinely wants to unite all opposition forces on a single-point agenda of ridding Pakistan of military rule," says a leader of his Muslim League Party. Certainly, in the crush of Lahore airport, he looked and sounded different. "I have no interest in power," he said. "I only want an end to military dictatorship and the restoration of democracy in Pakistan." The weeks ahead will determine the weight of those words and whether there is a new player on Pakistan's political scene, or just another old one.
