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.
Sharif, who is Pakistan’s longest serving prime minister over his three separate terms, had fled Pakistan under markedly different circumstances. Removed from power in 2017, he was then sentenced to seven years in prison and given a lifetime ban from politics. He and his party have long alleged it was politically motivated punishment for going up against Pakistan’s military establishment, who are seen as the country’s political kingmakers.
After falling ill in prison, Sharif was given a six-week bail by the courts in 2019 to seek medical treatment in the UK. Hiding out in the luxury central London flats owned by his family, he didn’t come back to Pakistan for almost four years.
The circumstances that enabled Sharif’s return to the country last week, with little apparent fear of arrest and his eye on elections, have been the subject of much speculation; but most agree that it was only possible with a green light from the powerful army generals he once railed against. Though he still faces several legal hurdles to be able to contest the upcoming elections, likely to be held early next year, this week he was granted bail in two corruption cases and the right to appeal his conviction, the first steps towards his rehabilitation.
Nusrat Javeed, a senior political analyst, said he believed Sharif’s homecoming had only become possible after a deal with the military establishment.
Not long ago, Sharif had remained defiantly critical of the military interference that has defined Pakistani politics over the past six decades, either as outright coups or as influence behind the scenes. Sitting in exile in London, he had made video speeches accusing the former army chief of being behind his downfall and of making the country “an altar of your wishes”.
But as the political landscape in Pakistan began to shift back in his favour – in particular the appointment of his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister in 2022 – and negotiations began for his return, Sharif’s anti-military rhetoric gradually subdued. He began to emphasise that he was not interested in “revenge politics” and mentions of army chiefs disappeared from his speeches. In Lahore on Saturday, his address spoke only of peace, economic revival and building ties with India, agendas that align closely with those of the military leadership.
Many now see Sharif as the military’s chosen candidate for the upcoming elections. Given the military’s historic role in selecting Pakistan’s prime ministers through various forms of alleged vote rigging and coercion, some analysts have claimed that if his path is legally cleared, his return to power is seen as almost guaranteed. “The free and fair election is a myth at this point in Pakistan,” said Javeed.
The rehabilitation of Sharif can mostly be attributed to the dramatic fall of former prime minister Imran Khan, who was the military’s so-called “blue-eyed boy” in the previous election in 2018, though Khan has denied that the military rigged the election in his favour. Khan now sits behind bars and is facing trial in dozens of cases, his party systematically destroyed. The irony that Sharif himself was toppled and jailed five years ago, allegedly so the military could make way for Khan, has not been lost on political observers.
“The script is always the same in Pakistan,” said Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, a former senator. “Yesterday, it was Nawaz Sharif facing the wrath of the military, today it is Khan.”
Khan’s once harmonious relationship with the military began to fall apart in late 2021 and by April 2022, Khan was toppled as prime minister in a vote of no confidence, widely accepted to have been orchestrated by the military. Opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif, seen by many as a proxy for his older brother Nawaz, was then appointed prime minister in a parliamentary vote.
After being removed from power, Khan began an anti-military crusade unlike anything seen in Pakistani politics before. He led chants against the former army chief at political rallies, publicly accused the military establishment of trying to control politics and accused the military leadership of trying to assassinate him.
After Khan, who still remains extremely popular among the masses, was arrested in May, it prompted country-wide protests and riots, including attacks on military establishments. The crackdown on Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party was draconian in response. Thousands of rank-and-file members were detained, and most of Khan’s close aides were arrested, tortured or disappeared for weeks, before suddenly re-emerging at press conferences and chatshows to publicly condemn Khan and quit PTI. Khan himself was first sentenced to three years in jail for corruption, and now faces up to 14 years in prison on separate charges of selling state secrets.
Zulfi Bukhari, a close aide of Khan who served as a minister in his government, who is also facing charges in Pakistan, said that “this election will be rigged, people will not have the right to vote for who they want. All PTI leaders are in hiding or exile or prison to prevent them running. Every law, every institution, every court has been bent so that Nawaz Sharif can somehow be brought back and become prime minister”.
Those in Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) denied this outright. “There is no truth to speculations of a deal with the military,” said Musadik Malik, a PML-N leader. “Nawaz is not talking about political revenge, be it the military or Imran Khan. All political parties have a level playing field.”
While Sharif has a chequered relationship with the military – all three of his past terms ended prematurely after confrontations with the establishment – the decision to pivot back to him appears to be due to a lack of other viable candidates who will be able to draw the country away from Khan’s disruptive, populist politics and pursue economic stability and better ties with India, the military’s key priorities of the moment.
“Sharif is the least risky bet for the military,” said Avinash Paliwal, senior lecturer in international relations at Soas University of London. “They see him as a force of stability who will play by the rules set by the establishment. Sharif knows that if he tries to assert himself too much, they will simply kick him out, just as they’ve done before.”
Yet out on Pakistan’s streets, where people have been suffering through one of the worst economic crises in the country’s history – with food and fuel inflation sky high – and where support for Khan and PTI remains strong, the sense of political disillusionment was palpable. While some felt Sharif might bring much needed stability to the country, many railed against the unchanging grip held by a few political dynasties.
“I have lost hope in Pakistani politics and system,” said Maria Liaqat, a master’s student in Lahore who previously voted for Khan. “In the last election, the military did everything to make PTI successful, now they are doing everything to make them fail. We all know the army is behind everything.”
