Sharif met his political end during the second of his two terms as P.M., when he badly overplayed his weakening hand and tried to sack Musharraf, who was then (as he is now) the powerful Army chief of staff. The military revolted. Musharraf quickly overthrew Sharif in a bloodless coup in October 1999, sending him into exile—good news to Pakistanis fed up with Sharif’s autocratic ways. Now, as Musharraf’s own popularity and power have plummeted, Sharif, 58, has seized the moment.
Musharraf and the president’s men are scrambling to thwart his return, appealing to Saudi Arabia (which brokered the deal to get Sharif out of jail in 2000) to prevent the homecoming. The government could arrest him on recently reinstated corruption charges, or deport him immediately to Saudi Arabia. But Sharif says he’s determined to come home. “[Musharraf’s] tactics don’t scare me anymore,” he told NEWSWEEK. “We want to fight a decisive battle against dictatorship. Democracy has to win, dictatorship has to lose.”
Sharif, certainly, could win if he returns. Musharraf’s political party, the Pakistan Muslim League, is largely made up of defectors from Sharif’s faction of the league. If they rally to Sharif, as analysts predict, he immediately becomes the front runner in the next parliamentary elections to be held later this year or early next year. “I have a gut feeling the political scales are tipped heavily in favor of Nawaz Sharif,” says retired Pakistani Lt. Gen. Talat Masood.
Sharif’s possible comeback is due to the bungles of Musharraf, who tried to sack the Supreme Court’s top judge this past March, sparking huge public protests. An inconsistent policy of scorched-earth military attacks against militants, followed by surrender-like peace deals, have further damaged his image. Polls show his job-approval rating at 34 percent, and that more than 60 percent of Pakistanis do not want him re-elected president. Antimilitary sentiment is running high, says Masood. “People want the rule of law and for the military to go back to the barracks.” That’s exactly what Sharif’s line is as well. “The Army needs to go back to its defense role,” he says.
Right now, Sharif is seen as the man standing up to Musharraf. But while he was in power, Sharif mismanaged the economy and tried to force Parliament to make Sharia the law of the land. Sharif quickly lost an unprecedented two thirds parliamentary majority.
“We all make mistakes,” Sharif says. “We have to learn from them and see that they are not repeated in the future.”
Arguably, his successor has not done that. Under Sharif, Parliament and the courts challenged the disastrous invasion of Kargil in Kashmir, led by Musharraf as the then chief of staff. “The system of checks and balances had started to operate,” says Samina Ahmed, South Asia director for the International Crisis Group. But the coup, also led by Musharraf, derailed that progress, as well as Sharif’s bold peace overtures to India, says Masood.
Sharif was a strong U.S. ally in the fight against terror. He moved forcefully against Sunni extremists in Pakistan, pressed the Taliban to deport Pakistani terrorists from Afghanistan and allowed the Clinton administration to use Pakistani airspace in the 1998 cruise-missile attack on Osama bin Laden’s bases in Afghanistan. Today, he says, U.S. strategy relies too heavily on a dictatorial leader—Musharraf. “Extremism and radicalism thrive only under dictatorships,” says Sharif. “You need the support of the people to counter terrorism.” And you need leaders who really can learn from their mistakes.
