LAHORE: Former president Pervez Musharraf underlined his ambitions to return to Pakistan to contest general elections in 2013, casting himself as a tested politician who can turn around the country’s dire economic problems.
“Now that Pakistan is in turmoil, the people of Pakistan remember what they had,” Musharraf said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “They want a viable alternative.” Musharraf last month formally launched a new political party, the All Pakistan Muslim League, which he plans to use as a vehicle to contest the 2013 general elections.
The challenges that await him at home are stiff. Many of Pakistan’s political elite are set against Musharraf, who they claim usurped power and then held on to it through constitutional changes that eroded democracy. For now, Musharraf is in self-imposed exile in London, biding his time for a comeback. “I’m prepared to go back,” he said.
“When I’ve created a certain environment-and before the next election-I will go back.” He points out there is no legal case against him and that both the country’s Supreme Court and National Assembly backed his constitutional changes at the time. “They don’t want me to come back and enter politics. But I know that there’s no case.”
Part of his strategy is to hit the campaign trail in the US and the UK, where there is a large Pakistani diaspora. On his current US trip, Musharraf told WSJ he has visited seven cities. Musharraf points toward his 350,000 “fans” on the social-networking portal Facebook as testimony to his popularity among young voters.
Likewise, his ability to raise $3 million for the victims of this summer’s flooding in Pakistan speaks to his reach, Musharraf claimed in the interview.
