Return of the native

As the power struggle in Pakistan takes on added urgency ahead of crucial presidential-parliamentary elections in the country, the painstakingly arranged "deal" that Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf wanted sewn up ahead of a new term as president is in danger of unravelling.

Musharraf has the tough task of accommodating the concerns of an astute politician such as Benazir Bhutto who has risked public opprobrium in her efforts to nudge the military genie back into the bottle, without alienating the breakaway Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid), or the PML (Q), the general's own political creation on which he is dependant for survival.

But it is the emergence of a fourth player in this uncomfortable equation, a man determined to play by his own rules that could shatter the understanding the general was willing to arrive at with Bhutto.

Musharraf is now being forced to look over his shoulder, not only at the rebellious Chaudhries of Gujarat who have the requisite numbers in parliament to influence events, but also at the unlikely rise to stature of the one man whom he thought he had dwarfed politically — Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif.

The linchpin

Twice elected and deposed as many times, Sharif is turning out to be the new "comeback kid" precisely because, unlike Bhutto, he has refused to negotiate the terms of his return with Musharraf. Sharif has morphed from being a child of the military, and indeed the primary beneficiary of the establishment's role in Pakistan's politics, to become its most trenchant critic, threatening to undo the re-election that Musharraf has worked hard to put in place.

"It's either dictatorship or democracy," Sharif said, in an "us or them" message within minutes of a Supreme Court judgment that could see him end seven years of exile and brave threatened re-arrest and detention over cases of corruption, hijacking, tax evasion, embezzlement and terrorism if he returns on September 10.

Speaking to this writer from London, Sharif said: "I have full faith in the judiciary. I am prepared to face anything they throw at me. If they arrest me, then how long can they keep me behind bars? A week? A month? After the Supreme Court judgment, there is no question. I will get bail."

He is clear that this is the moment of reckoning, the denouement.

Musharraf has repeatedly referred to the secret pact where Sharif had promised to stay out of the country and its politics for ten years. The unnamed country that then stood guarantor has, however, stayed scrupulously silent, with an insider indicating that country's envoy to the UK has affirmed its support.

But clearly, while Sharif may have the guarantor's blessings, he stands outside the charmed circle drawn by Washington, which includes Bhutto and Musharraf.

His "Pakistan is not Musharraf" comment is a signal that he is unconcerned, even as it dawns on Washington he is the unpredictable card in the pack.

In effect, Sharif has stolen Bhutto's thunder. She was hoping to end her eight-year self-exile with a grand arrival by cutting a deal with the military rather than the judicial route taken by Sharif.

But her return and active participation in elections is in jeopardy as her main interlocutor finds his hands tied. Her arch enemies (and of Sharif's) are the Chaudhrys of Gujarat who have told Musharraf they will not allow their "shoulders to be used to hoist the PPP chairwoman".

Bhutto's key demands include: returning before the elections to lead her party, not being arrested, lifting the constitutional ban on twice elected prime ministers from a third term, an indemnity for governments that ruled between 1988 and 1999 (that leaves out cases against Sharif filed in 2000), Musharraf shedding his post of army chief before re-election and doing away with Article 58 (2b) which arms presidents with the power to dismiss elected governments.

Sharif has refused to accord the military ruler any legitimacy by not negotiating with him. Instead, he has called for an all-party meeting to discuss Pakistan's future, which Musharraf could attend, but not as a presidential candidate.

Clear distinctions

The marked difference between the political styles of Pakistan's two mainstream centrist politicians is a study in contrast. Sharif, leaning towards the Right-urban elite and Bhutto, to the populist Left; one favouring pragmatic realpolitik, the other, epitomising uncompromising cussedness; deal versus no deal.

Bhutto has long negotiated with the military to lay out her demands for a "transition to democracy".

In contrast, emissary after emissary has knocked on the doors of Sharif's home in London, but to no avail. His refusal is not entirely predicated on fears of being tainted. Embittered and angry, the manner of his ouster — on the night of October 12, 1999 — still rankles Sharif.

Successful or not, Bhutto's steely determination to extract the last pound of flesh from a waning military presidency mirrors the time in 1988 when she mounted a campaign to embarrass General Zia ul Haq into setting a date for elections.

Sharif believes he can overthrow the military by riding the anti-American wave. Bhutto would rather work with Washington and the military to take on the twin tasks of confronting and destroying the Al Qaida threat by force while paving the way for greater political representation.

Their contrasting strategies reflect the variations of the populist tracks they have chosen. Sharif hopes to set the stage for a repeat of the street protests that marked the restoration of the suspended chief justice to office — the first signs the president was losing his iron grip. There are already rumblings within the ruling PML(Q) of a mass exodus to Sharif's mother party.

The upheaval that could mark Sharif's return is precisely the nightmare scenario that Bhutto was hoping to avoid. When she returned to Zia's Pakistan, she was careful that none of her mammoth public rallies turned on the pro-establishment forces. She believes any such move now will provide an easy excuse for the intelligence agencies to impose an emergency, or worse, martial law.

The significant others

The other key difference in their approach is over the role of the newly formed All Parties Democratic Movement. The movement — which includes the Awami National Party and Imran Khan's Tehreek-i-Insaf — replaces the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and brings every opposition party, barring Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, under one umbrella.

Most important, it includes the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.

The Majlis's main leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed of the Jamaat-e-Islami, has filed a petition challenging Musharraf's eligibility to be re-elected as president. But he has always played the supportive role demanded of him when the military — particularly General Zia-ul-Haq — has cited "the doctrine of necessity".

The change in Qazi can be put down to Musharraf's complete alignment with the US. Matters are further complicated by the future role of the MMA's pro-government Maulana Fazlur Rahman, who could split the party and threaten the MMA governments in Balochistan and the North West Frontier.

But even a diminished MMA remains an asset to Pakistan's new comeback kid in drawing the anti-American vote to his party in the two provinces where his party has no real presence.

To Bhutto, the Islamist MMA, which in its earlier avatars mounted a hate campaign against a woman prime minister, is anathema.

Time will tell whether Sharif or Bhutto has been the more astute of the two. The challenge before the two protagonists for change ranged against the status quoists is whether they have read the mood of the nation correctly and be given a third try at replacing Pakistan's quasi-military rule with a full-fledged democracy. Or whether the promise of the short-lived Charter of Democracy has been belied and their political differences will see the pugilists ranged on opposite sides of the boxing ring, with the establishment playing one-up against the other. As they always have.

A seasoned player

Few remember that despite being elected as prime minister twice — once, as part of the rainbow alliance of the Islami Jamhoori Ittihad, and then, as head of his own Pakistan Muslim League — and both times with the blessings of "the establishment", once in power, Nawaz Sharif strained to shrug off the straitjacket of the military-intelligence network.

The former prime minister is the protégé of the former army chief General Zia ul Haq who inducted him into politics and whom he is careful never to criticise despite universal condemnation of the general's introduction of religion into the country's politics and its army. He was Zia's choice as a young minister of finance in the Punjab cabinet in 1981 and again as chief minister of the province in 1988.

Sharif was clearly being groomed to check the rising popularity of Benazir, daughter of the populist leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Soft spoken, with a penchant for cricket and "desi" cuisine, Sharif was born into a wealthy family. His father Mian Mohammad Sharif was the founder of Ittefaq Group of Industries. He was part of Punjab's ruling elite and was an active supporter of the right-wing group the Tableeghi Jamaat with its own close links to the Islamist parties such as the Jamaat-e-Islami.

But from his first term in office, Sharif ran afoul of the military, falling out with General Mirza Aslam Beg over Pakistan's role in the 1991 Gulf War, with General Asif Nawaz Janjua over the crackdown in Sindh and with General Wahid Kakar over President Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

The story that did the rounds then said Kakar rapped the young Sharif on the knuckles and forced him to give in his resignation when he sought time to consult with his father. Kakar said: "You are prime minister, not your father." In his second term, Sharif scrapped Article 58 (2B).

He sacked the Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and later the army chief General Jehangir Karamat when the latter expressed the need for an army-led National Security Council to oversee the country's affairs. He also reintroduced Sharia.

The life and times of Nawaz Sharif

December 25, 1947: Born in Lahore
November 1, 1990 to July 18, 1993: First term as prime
minister
February 17, 1997 to October 12,1999: Re-elected for a second term with powerful majority in both houses of parliament
May 28, 1998: Ordered nuclear tests that made Pakistan an overtly nuclear weapons state
February 1999: Signed the landmark Lahore Declaration with India
May 1999: War in Kargil with India
October 12, 1999: Ousted in a bloodless coup by General Musharraf
December 2000: Goes into exile in Saudi Arabia
August 23, 2007: Cleared to return home by Pakistan's Supreme Court
September 10, 2007: Plans to land in Islamabad