JEDDAH, 9 July — Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has denied press reports that he had met with Benazir Bhutto, another former prime minister, in Jeddah to forge a poll alliance to oust President Pervez Musharraf. “These reports are not at all true. I have not met Benazir Bhutto for quite a long time,” Sharif told Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News.
Musharraf on Saturday issued a decree that effectively bars Sharif and Benazir from holding office ever again. “Anyone who has held the office of prime minister or provincial chief minister for two terms shall not be qualified to hold the office again,” a government official said explaining the decree.
The law apparently gives legal effect to Musharraf’s repeated assertion that the two former prime ministers would not be allowed to regain political power as, according to him, they plundered national resources and ruined the economy during their rule. Both are living abroad in exile: Sharif in Saudi Arabia and Benazir in Dubai and London. They reportedly plan to return home to launch a struggle for the restoration of democracy in the country.
Benazir left Pakistan in 1998 when Sharif was in power because of alleged victimization by her main political adversary. Musharraf ousted Sharif in a bloodless coup in October 1999 and exiled him to Saudi Arabia in December 2000 in a deal in which Sharif’s 21-year jail sentence for hijacking and tax evasion was commuted if he did not return for 10 years and did not engage in politics.
