Court allows ex-prime minister to run
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's supreme court ruled yesterday that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the nation's most popular politician, can participate in elections despite an earlier ban.
The ruling is expected to ease political tensions in the short term but could ultimately pose a challenge for President Asif Ali Zardari, who is Sharif's main rival and whose own popularity has plummeted. Although elections are not due until 2013, Sharif is now in position to reclaim the office he held twice in the 1990s.
"This is a decision welcomed by the entire nation," Sharif told reporters in the eastern city of Lahore, his base. "Today an independent judiciary is giving independent decisions."
Sharif and his brother Shahbaz had been banned from electoral politics because of previous criminal convictions that they say were politically motivated.
The brothers' reinstatement had been widely expected. Earlier this year, Nawaz Sharif led a successful movement to restore the chief justice of the supreme court, whom then-president Pervez Musharraf had fired.
Zardari congratulated Sharif. But Sharif's branch of the Pakistan Muslim League represents the main opposition to Zardari's Pakistan People's Party, and the enmity between the men is well known. For now, Sharif is supporting Zardari on several issues, most crucially the military's operation in the Swat Valley.
