The scenes were eerily similar: Nawaz Sharif, standing in front of tens of thousands of supporters in his home town of Lahore, making a pitch to become Pakistan’s leader. But this was not 1990, nor 1997 nor 2013 – the three previous occasions that Sharif was elected prime minister. Instead, it was an event held over the weekend to mark his return from self-imposed exile in the UK, and his bid, once again, for power.
“It appears that we are in another pendulum swing of Pakistani politics – back again to Nawaz Sharif,” said Madiha Afzal, a fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank.
