Ending self-exile, former Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif to return home to lead his party in general election

Islamabad: Unfazed by the threat of arrest and incarceration, former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif is expected to return to the country after four years on Saturday to lead his party in the next general elections and try and secure a record fourth term for himself.

After spending two days in Saudi Arabia, Sharif is currently in Dubai to meet some people and is expected to fly here in a chartered plane. He is then expected to head to Lahore to address his party’s rally at Minar-e-Pakistan. Since he has secured preventive bail in two corruption cases, he is unlikely to be arrested upon landing in Islamabad.

Sharif, 73, was on a self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom after jumping bail in 2020. The leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was serving a seven-year jail term when the Islamabad High Court suspended his sentence in 2019 for eight weeks to allow him to go abroad to seek medical treatment, but he never came back.

A medical report on his health submitted to the Lahore High Court earlier this month said Sharif still had “some residual anginal symptoms” which would require “frequent follow-up investigations” in London and Pakistan.

The former premier who began politics under the wings of military ruler General Zia ul Haq as the finance minister of Punjab province in 1981 and then as its chief minister in 1985 is up against heavy odds due to multiple complications, both legal and political.

Soon after his landing in Islamabad or Lahore on October 21, he would have been arrested if the courts had not intervened as Sharif was declared a proclaimed offender in the Al-Azizia steel mill corruption case by the Islamabad High Court in 2020 and declared as an absconder by an accountability court due to his absence from attending proceedings. However, the Islamabad High Court approved a protective bail until October 24 while an Islamabad-based Accountability Court suspended his permanent arrest warrants in the Toshakhana vehicles case until the same date, thus removing legal bars in the way for Sharif to land safely and address a rally as planned to be “mammoth” by his party. Uzma Bokhari, PML-N leader, said every person has a right to get access to the court and there are several instances of protective bail given to convicts to let them approach the courts.

“Nawaz Sharif was convicted in fake cases of corruption and he would not only get bail but also his

conviction would be reversed,” Bokhari said while participating in a recent television talk show. Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi, a renowned political analyst, said, Sharif may face several problems, primarily due to court cases.

“There are several political hurdles in his way due to the two convictions of 2018,” Rizvi said. Apart from the Al-Azizia steel mill corruption case, the former prime minister was also convicted in the Avenfiled property case, in which he has already secured bail.

Pointing out that protective bail is given to an accused to access a court and not a convict, eminent lawyer Ahmad Awais said: “Since Sharif is not a convict, he does not deserve a protective bail on merit. There is no precedence of protective bail to a convict.”

Pakistan’s security agencies have warned the Punjab government of a potential threat to Nawaz Sharif’s life upon his arrival in Lahore.