Ex-PM Sharif Plots Pakistan Return

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif plans to make a second attempt to return from exile to confront President Gen. Pervez Musharraf ahead of Pakistan's critical elections, his party said Thursday.

Loyalists judges swept away the last legal obstacles to Musharraf's beginning another five-year term as president. The U.S.-allied leader is expected to step down as army chief within days to blunt domestic and foreign criticism of his 20-day-old state of emergency.

But he appears to have fewer options to fend off Sharif, his most vehement opponent and a political heavyweight who could complicate pro-Western rival Benazir Bhutto's chances of returning to power.

Presidential spokesman Rashid Qureshi stonewalled questions about whether Musharraf would allow Sharif, the man he ousted in a 1999 coup, to enter the country. Sharif was swiftly deported when he tried to return in September - with Saudi approval.

But Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q party, said Thursday that Sharif now had "some deal" with Saudi authorities.

"We are ready to face him and he has to face the people" in parliamentary elections set for Jan. 9, Hussain said on Dawn News television.

Musharraf has insisted that Sharif, whose government he ousted in a 1999 coup, stay out of Pakistan until after the ballot, which the West hopes will produce a moderate government able to turn a tide of Islamic militancy.

But speculation that Saudi Arabia was willing to let Sharif go home has been rife since Musharraf made a surprise trip to Riyadh for talks with King Abdullah on Tuesday.

Sharif's party said their leader traveled from his residence in the Red Sea town of Jiddah to the capital, Riyadh, on Thursday on a plane sent by King Abdullah and that Sharif would hold talks with the king on Friday.

Abdullah sent his intelligence chief to Islamabad two days before Sharif's Sept. 10 deportation to meet Musharraf and declare that the ex-premier should respect an agreement with the kingdom to stay out of Pakistan for 10 years. Musharraf agreed to cancel a life-sentence imposed on Sharif in connection with the coup.

But Sharif spokesman Ahsan Iqbal said Saudi leaders were dismayed at criticism in Pakistan of their role in that affair, and didn't want to take sides in a bitter election campaign.

He said the government would struggle to find anywhere else to send Sharif.

"No country will want to take such a strong political position when (Musharraf) is so unpopular and the whole country is protesting against him," Iqbal said. "The best (Musharraf) can do is put him in jail" for alleged corruption, he said.

Sharif's politician brother, Shahbaz Sharif, said the party would announce on Saturday when he would return, perhaps before the end of the month.

The re-emergence of a dangerous rival creates a new headache for Musharraf just as he tries to defend the extraordinary powers he seized on Nov. 3 against stiff criticism at home and abroad.

Najam Sethi, editor of Pakistan's Daily Times newspaper, said that letting Sharif return would boost Musharraf's democratic credentials, but would undermine the ruling party, made up mainly of former Sharif supporters who deserted him after the coup.

"Mr Sharif's presence in the country would embolden many people to desert the (ruling party)" and split the secular, conservative vote in the election, Sethi said.

That could "indirectly help Ms. Bhutto in a three-way fight so it would be very significant if he were to be allowed to come back," Sethi said.

Musharraf declared the emergency just before the Supreme Court was to rule on complaints that the constitution bars the army chief from running for elected office.

Under the crackdown, independent TV news channels have been taken off the air and thousands of lawyers and opposition and human rights activists taken into custody.

The government says almost all have now been freed. However, CBS News sources say that thousands, not hundreds, are still under arrest, and more lawyers, journalists and human rights workers are being detained daily, reports

The President of Supreme Court Bar Association, lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan, is still missing. He was arrested by police as he spoke at a press conference.

"The police came in and they said, 'Sorry it's over, we have to pick you up,'" Ashan's wife Bushra told CBS News, adding, "There is no democracy in the country and President Bush knows it."

The government also said that Thursday's court ruling meant Musharraf could meet another key demand of his critics by doffing his military uniform and taking oath as a civilian.

Attorney General Malik Mohammed said that could happen as soon as this weekend.

The U.S. has so far stood by Musharraf, a key ally in its fight against terror, but is the loudest voice in an international chorus calling for him to lift the emergency before the election.

The Commonwealth, a 53-nation group composed mainly of Britain and its former colonies, was to decide later Thursday at a ministerial meeting in Africa whether to suspend Pakistan's membership.

The concessions could also help prevent the opposition parties from boycotting the vote.

The party of former cricket star Imran Khan on Thursday led calls for all the entire opposition to shun the ballot, saying it would lend legitimacy to a "dictator."

Bhutto's party said that as well as lifting the emergency and doffing his uniform, Musharraf would have to reconstitute the Election Commission and suspend district mayors to ensure a fair ballot.

However, it said the opposition could take weeks to reach an agreement on a boycott, and Bhutto said its candidates would file nomination papers "under protest" in the meantime.

"We don't want to give a walkover to the opposition," she told reporters in Karachi.