LAHORE: Bad news is in the offing for the embattled and besieged PPP-led government, as PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif is about to break free from the shackles of his 10-year exile agreement that expires on November 27, making him eligible to contest elections, more appropriately, mid-term elections.
“The party has waited for the moment patiently despite all odds. There will be no more strings attached after November 27 and foreign friends look happy with Nawaz’s conduct for sticking to the agreement until the end,” well-placed sources in Raiwind told Pakistan Today.
Sources said Nawaz’s letter submitted to President Asif Ali Zardari, considered a charge sheet against the PPP government by most analysts, was doubtlessly the first practical and documented warning to Zardari, and had a “stop me if you can” tone.
The caution sounded not less than a siren of in-house change through no trust move, paving the way for snap polls if the suggestions paddled in the letter remained unattended, the sources emphasised.
“The lion will be out of cage soon to regain the throne snatched by Zardari,” party sources said. “It is true that the 10-year exile agreement was a compulsion that forced Nawaz not to contest by-elections in June 2008, even after Election Commission of Pakistan allowed him to do so,” they added.
A close aide of Nawaz said the PML-N chief knew that he could not vie for election unless 10 years were complete. However, Nawaz trivialised the agreement by filing his nomination paper for NA-123 merely to deepen an impression that such agreement did not exist at all, and even if it was there, its validity had ended after the passage of five years.
“The nomination papers were rejected, but later accepted. Despite winning the legal battle, he took a U-turn and refused to run for by-elections, leaving people awfully surprised and thoughtless,” he added.
“The reason was the 10-year agreement guaranteed by his Saudi and foreign friends.” The secret was also revealed when Saudi intelligence chief Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz and Lebanese politician Saad Hariri arrived in Islamabad separately and addressed an unprecedented joint press conference at the Army House, telling reporters that Nawaz was bound by the agreement.
“We are hopeful that the signatory will adhere to that agreement and stick to it. The Custodian of the two Holy Mosques helped Mr Sharif and his family to get out of imprisonment under such an agreement …which was aimed at ensuring the stability of Pakistan,” the prince said.
Hariri clarified that he helped broker the agreement under which Nawaz was released from prison and allowed to go into exile. He said he made regular contacts with Nawaz to ensure that the agreement was continuing and binding, “because this was an understanding and it was a promise made to the Custodian of two Holy Mosques”.
Asked about the details of the agreement, Prince Muqrin waved a copy of the agreement to the media and said, “It is here and signed.” Although Nawaz denied the existence of any “exile deal” with the government before his return home, he later admitted that there was an agreement, but for five years only.
Since that day, political experts say, Nawaz masqueraded as a friendly opposition leader in critical situations. The PML-N went into hibernation for two-and-a-half years and waited of the agreement to expire. Sensing that the time for that was nearing, Nawaz started changing his position from a friend to foe in September.
While heralding a political change through constitutional means, the PML-N chief floated the idea of a Charter of Pakistan on September 16, with a view to devising a grand strategy for the next 25 years.
Nawaz gave a crystal clear ‘no-cooperation’ message to the PPP government, telling the prime minister unequivocally that he (PM) should not expect any cooperation from his party in the future. It was then when the PML-N raised the slogan of snap-polls for the first time, with Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah saying the only solution to the “current crises” was mid-term elections.
Aggression was apparent further when Nawaz said during his last trip to London that the country needed to be saved from the crises through a new social contract. On November 2, Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Nisar Ali Khan said an “in-house change” could be the third option to get rid of the ruling PPP government.
Just before Eid, the PML-N chief held several meetings with diplomats, including US and British ambassadors, to inform them about the essentiality of mid-term polls, the sources added.
