Lunch with Aitzaz Ahsan

Nawaz Sharif has announced that he will return to Pakistan on September 10. But as he finalises plans for the journey, he8217;s been hosting very interesting visitors in his London exile, one confirmed and the other speculated about.

Nawaz Sharif has announced that he will return to Pakistan on September 10. But as he finalises plans for the journey, he8217;s been hosting very interesting visitors in his London exile, one confirmed and the other speculated about. The News8217;s dispatch from London on August 28 captured the drama of the first: 8220;Political circles in London were surprised to note that instead of attending a very important party meeting being chaired by Benazir Bhutto8230; hardly a few hundred yards away, the top lawyer of the chief justice of Pakistan in the presidential reference case and senior PPP leader, Aitzaz Ahsan, met Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif on Monday over lunch. It is also significant that Aitzaz has not yet met Benazir since he arrived here. The PPP meeting was called in the wake of Sharif8217;s reported plan to end his exile and return to Pakistan early next month.8221;

Ahsan, whose name has been mentioned in recent news reports as a possible presidential candidate of the opposition, told Dawn August 28 after 8220;a leisurely lunch8221;: 8220;Of course we discussed the current political situation in the country. He had his own perspective about it and I had mine. We also talked about the historic CJ case and the one which ended recently with the Supreme Court ruling that there was no bar against the return home of the Sharif family.8221; Did he think the Sharifs would actually return? 8220;They have to, after the Supreme Court verdict. If they had no intention of going back then they should not have gone to the courts and I think they would not have if that is what they had intended to do. If they ask me, I will tell them to return home at the earliest. There is so much of political space waiting for them at this juncture.8221;

Lebanese role

The other meeting. Dawn reported on Monday from London: 8220;Sharif met Saad Hariri, son of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, in late July when the Sharif family was on a visit to Scotland, a source close to Sharif brothers told Dawn.8221; The 8220;source8221;, however, denied that Hariri had advised the Sharifs not to return to Pakistan and abide by the 8220;deal8221; with the government in 2000. The source also dismissed reports that Rafik Hariri had been the guarantor of that deal. On August 30, the newspaper reported from Pind Dadan Khan: 8220;President Pervez Musharraf said that Sharif had been asked by an 8216;eminent personality8217;, who is a friend of Pakistan, to honour his commitment of not returning to the country before the end of 10 years of exile.8221;

ABC of the deal

On Friday, The Daily Times took stock of the pieces of the 8220;deal8221; being negotiated between Musharraf and Bhutto: 8220;According to the latest statement of Bhutto, President Musharraf 8216;has agreed to step down as army chief8217;. Once that is done, she wants a civilianised President Pervez Musharraf not to have the power to fire the assemblies under Article 582-B so that the balance between the powers of the parliament and the president is restored. There is a corollary to the act of taking off the uniform. That is the avoidance through a constitutional amendment of the possible legal bar on General Musharraf8217;s re-election without the lapse of two years after retirement from the army. For that he will need the PPP vote in parliament which in turn will mean that he will have to change his mind about keeping Bhutto out of the country and prevent her from becoming prime minister again.8221;

Added Najam Sethi in his Friday Times editorial August 31-September 6: 8220;Bhutto wants all cases of misconduct, criminality or corruption dropped against her and all other politicians. Originally, she had demanded that this general amnesty should cover the period from 1988 to 2007, thereby including the charges against Sharif, so that she could say she had negotiated a national rather than a personal reconciliation. But General Musharraf refuses to give any relief to Sharif. The deterrent is critical for General Musharraf since Sharif is his chief opponent, not just personally but also politically since the PMLQ has been carved out of the PMLN and is threatened by desertions to the Nawaz camp. Hence the new proposal to drop all such charges against everyone only from 1988 to 1999 will probably carry and Sharif will not benefit from it.8221; Sethi concluded: 8220;If Sharif does return, he will precipitate another crisis in the country which will pit the courts and the PMLN against the government.8221;