A Pakistani court granted bail to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday (October 19), guaranteeing him not to be arrested when he returns to his country this weekend after almost four years in exile, the one of his lawyers. Nawaz Sharif has been exiled in London since November 2019 and must return to Pakistan to help his party, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), win elections, scheduled for the end of January.
The Islamabad court’s decision protects him from any arrest until October 24 and will allow him to take part in the rally planned for his return on Saturday to Lahore, capital of the Punjab province, his electoral stronghold. “He cannot be arrested upon arrival,” one of his lawyers, Amjad Pervaiz, stressed for Agence France-Presse.
Nawaz Sharif, who served three times as prime minister of Pakistan, was impeached for alleged corruption in 2017 by the Supreme Court, which banned him for life from any political mandate a year later. His return comes at a time when former Prime Minister Imran Khan, the PML-N’s main rival in the upcoming elections, remains imprisoned.
The role of the army questioned
Nawaz Sharif, for his part, was sentenced in December 2018 to seven years in prison for corruption and imprisoned for ten months, before being released on bail due to his state of health and being able to go for treatment for a few weeks in London.
Despite several summons to appear before the Pakistani courts, he had not left the British capital since, from where he continued to lead the PML-N behind the scenes. His return was made possible by the coming to power of his brother, Shehbaz Sharif, after the ouster in April 2022 of Imran Khan from his post as prime minister, thanks to a motion of censure adopted in the National Assembly.
Analysts believe that Nawaz Sharif, whose three previous mandates were interrupted before their end, would have obtained guarantees from the all-powerful army not to be incarcerated. The interim government, made up of technocrats, which succeeded that of Shehbaz Sharif in August to prepare for the elections, denied that any arrangement had been made.
Nawaz Sharif is the head of one of the two family dynasties that have dominated Pakistani politics for decades, with the Bhutto family’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Accused of leaking a classified document, Imran Khan, his main rival, has been imprisoned since August and was sentenced to three years in prison for corruption. He was declared ineligible for five years and is being prosecuted in more than 200 cases, which he considers politically motivated. The latter accuses the army, which helped him come to power in 2018 but whose support he has since lost according to observers, of seeking to prevent him from regaining leadership of the country.