But it’s hard to see why Musharraf bothered with the draconian security clampdown. He never allowed Sharif to leave the airport. Black-uniformed commandos surrounded the Pakistan International Airlines jet as soon as it landed. After a tense 90-minute standoff inside the plane, police escorted Sharif to the airport’s VIP lounge and served him with a warrant accusing him of corruption and money laundering while he was prime minister in the 1990s. They then marched him onto a PIA flight to Saudi Arabia. Less than five hours after his flight touched down, the former prime minister’s bold attempt at a political comeback was over—at least temporarily. But Musharraf’s initial triumph could well turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory. “Today the rule of law died,” says political scientist and columnist Rasul Bakhsh Rais. “Musharraf showed he has no respect for the rights of citizens and that he is determined to remain in power by any means. Pakistanis are going to be angry.”
So, too, may be the newly independent supreme court that ruled last month that Sharif had an “inalienable right” to return home from exile. Musharraf has dangerously flouted the verdict that the court made in favor of the man he overthrew in a bloodless coup in 1999. In doing so, the president risks opening another confrontation with the court, which he can ill afford. In the next few days or weeks the court will rule on a series of lawsuits challenging Musharraf’s right to stand for reelection to another five-year term as president and to continue serving simultaneously as head of state and army chief of staff. “This will worsen the already strained relations between the executive and the judiciary,” says retired Pakistani Army Lt. Gen. Talat Masood.
Musharraf’s previous confrontation with the court ended badly for him. His suspension last March of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry unified the opposition, brought tens of thousands of Pakistanis into the streets in support of the top judge, and marked the beginning of a precipitous plunge in the president’s job-approval rating to some 34 percent. In July the court overruled Musharraf and reinstated Chaudhry. Last month the Chaudhry court rejected the government’s argument that Sharif had gone into voluntary exile in 2000 for a period of 10 years under a legally binding agreement with Saudi Arabia, ruling instead that he could return home unhindered.
Fighting back, Musharraf was able to enlist the support of the normally low-key Saudi government. This past weekend Saudi intelligence chief Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz met with Musharraf in Islamabad and announced that Sharif should honor his commitment not to come home for a decade. In London Sharif countered that he understood the deal was valid for only five years. But with the Saudis cooperating with his anti-Sharif campaign, Musharraf felt comfortable ordering his deportation.
Musharraf also seemed to be sending a strong warning to any political force that may try to challenge him and his regime. “People have been humiliated, manhandled and brutalized,” says Rais. “Musharraf and his regime are clearly determined to remain in power by any means.” At the barricades the police seemed unnecessarily brutal. Tahmina Daultana, a parliamentarian from Sharif’s party, was beaten by police wielding rattan canes. “They have assaulted and beaten me,” she said as she was being led to a police van. “Where are our human and democratic rights?” The party’s information secretary, Ashan Iqbal, was also badly roughed up before being arrested. “This is a shameful day,” he said. “Gen. Musharraf has again proved there is no democracy but only a fascist dictatorship in Pakistan.” As NEWSWEEK was interviewing Mahmood Khan Achakzai, a Pashtun nationalist leader and Sharif ally, paramilitary police wearing black T-shirts with “ANTI-TERRORIST” stenciled on the back jumped on him, wrestled him to the ground and threw him into a police car.
Sharif and his PML faction may have lost this round. As a result of the security crackdown and their own disorganization, Sharif’s supporters were simply unable to mobilize the masses for his arrival. Still, the television pictures of PML men and women activists being pummeled by the security forces, and Sharif’s illegal deportation, may only serve to heighten political tensions in an already polarized nation. And these could intensify next Friday, when another former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, plans to announce a date for her return, most probably in October. Her negotiations with Musharraf over the government’s dropping corruption cases against her in return for her party not opposing his re-election as president are ongoing. “[Sharif’s deportation] may trigger off more street agitation, just as the suspension of the chief justice did,” predicts Masood. Rais agrees: “We definitely will see a more strident opposition movement in the future.”
But in the short term, the Supreme Court and the increasingly activist legal community pose the greatest threat to Musharraf. “In the current mood the Supreme Court is not going to let this ride,” says Najam Sethi, editor of the Daily Times. “Musharraf is facing a further entanglement with the court.”
