Nawaz Sharif

Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif (Urdu: میاں محمد نواز شریف ) was born on December 25, 1949 in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. He is originally from Kashmir though his family migrated generations ago. Nawaz Sharif was twice elected as Prime Minister of Pakistan, serving two non-consecutive terms. His first term was from November 1, 1990 to July 18, 1993, and his second term was from February 17, 1997 to October 12, 1999. His party is the Pakistan Muslim League N (Nawaz group). His rule came to an abrupt end following the overthrow of his government by the General Pervez Musharraf-led military coup in 1999 months after the Kargil War.

Chief Minister of Punjab

Nawaz Sharif began his first term as Chief Minister of the province Punjab on April 9, 1985. On May 31, 1988 he was appointed caretaker Chief Minister after the dismissal of assemblies by General Zia-ul-Haq. After the 1988 general elections, he was again elected as Chief Minister of Punjab.

Premiership

He first became Prime Minister on November 1, 1990, running on a platform of conservative government and an end to corruption. His term was interrupted on April 18, 1993, when President Ghulam Ishaq Khan used the reserve powers vested in him by the Eighth Amendment to dissolve the National Assembly. Less than six weeks later, the Supreme Court overruled the President, reconstituting the National Assembly and returning Sharif to power on May 26, 1993. Sharif resigned from office along with President Ghulam Ishaq Khan on July 18, 1993, after his feud with the president, who had accused him of corruption. Moin Qureshi became caretaker prime minister, and was succeeded shortly thereafter by Benazir Bhutto, who was elected to office on October 19, 1993.

Second Term

Nawaz was returned to power in February 1997 with such a huge majority that the result was immediately questioned by Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party.

One of the first things Sharif did at the start of his second term was to orchestrate the scrapping of Article 58-(2)(b) through another Amendment to the Constitution - an exercise in which Sharif’s party was joined by all the other political parties in the National Assembly and Senate. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan was passed so that the President could no longer dismiss the Prime Minister; and the Fourteenth Amendment imposed strict party discipline on members of Parliament. Party leaders now had unlimited power to dismiss any of their legislators if they failed to vote as they were told. This made it all but impossible to dismiss a prime minister by a motion of no confidence. In effect, the two amendments removed nearly all checks on the Prime Minister's power, since there was virtually no way for him to be legally dismissed. He opposed the independence of the judiciary, clashing with the Chief Justice, Sajjad Ali Shah. The Supreme Court was stormed by Sharif's party loyalists on November 28, 1997, and the Chief Justice was forced to resign.

On the development front, Nawaz Sharif completed the construction of South West Asia's first
motorway, the 367 km M2, linking Lahore and Islamabad. The motorway, which was initiated during Nawaz Sharif's first term, was inaugurated in November 1997 and was constructed at a cost of Rs 35.5 billion.

The peak of his popularity came when his government undertook nuclear tests on 28 May 1998 in response to India's nuclear tests two weeks earlier. However, after these tests, matter started going downhill. He suspended many civil liberties, dismissed the Sindh provincial government and set up military courts when the stability of the government was threatened. He was accused of cronyism and being too supportive of Punjabi candidates for office, which marginalized his party in the south.

During his first term as prime minister, Sharif had fallen out with three successive army chiefs: with General Mirza Aslam Beg over the 1991 Gulf War issue; with General Asif Nawaz over the Sindh "Operation Clean-Up" issue; and with General Wahid Kakar over the Sharif-Ishaq imbroglio.

At the end of General Waheed’s three-year term in January 1996, General Jehangir Karamat was appointed army chief. His term was due to end on January 9, 1999. In October 1998, however, true to form, Sharif fell out with General Karamat as well, over the latter’s advocacy of the need for the creation of a National Security Council.

In October 1998 General Karamat resigned and Sharif appointed General Pervez Musharraf as army chief (the first person to become army chief from the minority group of Urdu speaking people). He would later regret appointing Pervez Musharraf to the Chief of Army position, as Musharraf would lead a coup to topple Sharif's government.

Pakistan's nuclear tests

It was during this term that Pakistan carried out its nuclear tests on May 28, 1998, in response to the Indian detonation of five nuclear devices roughly two weeks before. The Nawaz Government justified the tests on national security grounds, as they demonstrated Pakistan's nuclear deterrent capabilities against an armed Indian nuclear program.

The Nawaz Government proclaimed an emergency on May 28, 1998; the day these nuclear tests were conducted. All fundamental rights were suspended and all the foreign currency accounts in Pakistani banks were frozen to minimize the effects of economic sanctions.

The Lahore Declaration

In order to normalize relations between India and Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif undertook a major initiative in February 1999. This initiative culminated in a visit by the Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to Lahore via bus, across the Wagah border, in 1999. Nawaz Sharif met him at the Wagah border and a joint communique, known as the Lahore Declaration, was signed between the two leaders. The Lahore Declaration spelled out various steps to be taken by the two countries towards normalizing relations.

Kargil Conflict and aftermath

The Kargil War in 1999 came to haunt then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.It was an international embarrassment and he came under American pressure to withdraw his troops after they were found to be assisting extremists and has suffered thousands of casualties. Some believe that Shariff was responsible for initiating the intrusions -- though he claimed that Army chief Pervez Musharraf was the brain behind the operation. (Information gleaned later showed that Musharraf was instrumental in planning the Kargil fiasco and in the ultimate withdrawal.) Growing fiscal deficits and debt-service payments, mainly due to American sanctions, led to a financial crisis. The government narrowly avoided defaulting on its international loans. With the country suffering from frequent power blackouts, Sharif directed the army in early 1999 to take control of the Water And Power Development Authority (WAPDA) of Pakistan, which had the adverse effect that many active and former military personnel were deployed as heads of civilian agencies. A trend that continues to this day.

Military Coup

See: 1999 Pakistani coup d'état

With the public and press openly speculating about the possibility of a military takeover, Nawaz became increasingly insecure. On October 12, 1999, he removed Musharraf as army chief. Musharraf, who was out of the country, boarded a commercial airliner to return to Pakistan. Sharif ordered the Karachi airport to prevent the landing of the airliner, which then circled the skies over Karachi. The army ousted Sharif's administration and took over the airport. The plane landed with only a few minutes of fuel to spare, and Musharraf assumed control of the government. The Supreme Court validated the coup on the grounds that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments destroyed all constitutional remedies for removing Musharraf from office.

Nawaz was thrown in prison and tried by Pakistan's Anti-Terrorism Courts, which sentenced him to several life sentences for corruption, hijacking, tax evasion, embezzlement, and terrorism in 2000. The military government agreed to commute his sentence from life in prison to exile in Saudi Arabia. His family moved with him. His wife and senior members of his party formed an anti-military coalition along with the Pakistan People's Party, previously the major opposition to Sharif's Muslim League. Nawaz and the PPP have only offered token resistance to President Musharraf's government. Efforts are mainly restricted to criticism through the media and trying to disrupt Parliament. Nawaz and his supporters have been unable to launch a broadly anti-government movement and appear to be losing their own support base in lahore

Charges

Nawaz Sharif's government was deposed from office by General Pervez Musharraf, who later declared himself the Chief Executive of Pakistan, effective Prime Minsiter-as he did not dismiss the nations then President Muhammad Rafiq Tarar, but became President later after Tarar retirement. Sharif was convicted in absentia of hijacking and terrorism after he blocked Pervez Musharraf from landing his plane anywhere in Pakistan, in leiu of dismissing him from his COAS post. A move the Supreme Court of Pakistan declared unconstitutional, as the COAS as a constitutional apointee is afforded due process before dismissal.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan, upholding the position of the Army, has disqualified Nawaz Sharif from holding any public office for 21 years, forbade his involvement in Pakistanu politics and fined him 20 million rupees. A plea bargin and intervention of the Saudi Royal Family spared Sharif from serving a prison term, instead he was exiled to the Kingdom, where he continues to live.

Recent events

Musharraf on May 11, 2005 declared that exiled political leaders, including Bhutto and Nawaz, would not be allowed to come back or participate in the general elections scheduled for 2007. Nawaz had been battling to obtain a Pakistani passport. Recently he was able to obtain a temporary passport allowing him limited travel to the United Kingdom where his son was hospitalized in serious condition. A pact was signed between former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto in London on May 14. Whether this pact will pressure the current Government in Pakistan remains to be seen as both Bhutto and Sharif are facing charges of corruption and incompetence, and in the eyes of many Pakistanis their anti-government campaigns have been failures.

Trivia

• Nawaz was a cricketer and played a first class game in the 1973-74 season representing Pakistan Railways.

• In his recent appearances on the media, Nawaz has been seen with much more hair than he used to have (he was almost bald) prompting most people to believe that he has undergone a hair implantation procedure like his brother Shahbaz Sharif.

See also

• Pakistan
• Politics of Pakistan
• Prime Minister of Pakistan
• President of Pakistan
• Line of Succession to President of Pakistan
• Shahbaz Sharif
• Category:Prime Ministers of Pakistan

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