ISLAMABAD, 26 August — Barring a few, most of the heavy weights filed nomination papers for the national and provincial assemblies, elections for which are due on Oct. 10, officials said. They include Kulsoom Nawaz, wife of the exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif, the former Punjab chief minister, who recently was elected president of the Pakistan Muslim League (party), revived by his brother after 40 years in 1990.
Yet another former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto too has filed for seats reserved for women. She had earlier submitted her documents from the two Larkana seats. The strategy looks obvious. Both the PML and PPP leaders want to exert maximum pressure on the military regime of President Pervez Musharraf.
It remains to be seen whether Kulsoom, and Shahbaz will be allowed to return home. They were exiled to Saudi Arabia on condition that they will not be allowed to return to Pakistan for ten years.
Benazir, after winning the reserved seats, will vacate both the seats of her home town to put up two more candidates from there and thus enhance her strength in the elected parliament.
Kulsoom, a simple housewife until her husband was incarcerated and sentenced for life in a plane hijacking case in April 2000, will be pitted against the chief of the breakaway faction of the PML Mian Muhammad Azhar from a Lahore city constituency.
Among the stalwarts filing candidature were the Nawaz League top brass Raja Zafarul Haq, the Jamaat-e-Islami chief, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, former minister Haleem Siddiqi, former Nawaz colleague Sheikh Rashid, who after developing differences with his mentor has now decided to run independently for the Rawalpindi constituency which he has been winning hands down since 1988.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has changed its strategy completely. Discarding most of its old hands, like former mayor and minister Farooq Sattar, Khalid Bin Waleed, and others, and picking Nasreen Jalil for a National Assembly seat from the posh Karachi area of Defense Society.
“Farooq Sattar and others were denied party tickets,” revealed an MQM insider, explaining that the party wanted to reorientate itself. It has decided to select people for representing it in the Parliament in keeping with the desires of the general public. A number of heavyweights have been disqualified for being non-graduate, a condition introduced by the government of the day.
Meanwhile, a top PPP aide said that Benazir is qualified in every respect to contest the elections and even the rules framed by the government do not disqualify her. “The government’s contention that Benazir is convicted and hence cannot contest elections is wrong because she was convicted for not appearing in a court, not for a crime,” Aitzaz Ahsan, former interior minister and a top leader of her Pakistan People’s Party said in an interview.
Ahsan said that the National Accountability Bureau Ordinance, under which Benazir has been deemed guilty of not heeding to court summons, could not be applied to her until she returned to the country. According to the NAB Ordinance, he argued, it was applicable to only such Pakistanis abroad who have been in government service whereas Benazir has never been a government employee.
Ahsan pointed out that under Article 260, a prime minister or a member of the National Assembly is not treated as a government servant. “Hence, under Section 31(A) of the NAB Ordinance, whatever sentences have been passed against Benazir have no legal binding and her nomination papers for election candidacy cannot be rejected,” he said.
