PAKISTAN:Nawaz Sharif, a Pakistani opposition leader, was barred yesterday from contesting the forthcoming election on January 8th, sparking fresh allegations that President Pervez Musharraf intends to rig the poll.
Barely a week after Mr Sharif's return from exile, officials declared the former prime minister ineligible to stand for election due to criminal charges stretching back to the 1999 coup that brought Gen Musharraf to power.
Mr Sharif dismissed the charges as politically motivated and vowed to battle on. "By God, Nawaz Sharif is fighting for his people and his Pakistan," he told cheering supporters in Islamabad.
Last night Mr Sharif met the other opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, to try and convince her to join a poll boycott. But his aides admitted that if she rebuffed him his party would probably take part in the election.
Yesterday's ban was not unexpected. Gen Musharraf exempted Ms Bhutto from longstanding corruption charges last October by passing a controversial "reconciliation" law that allowed her to return home. But he only reluctantly allowed Mr Sharif back last week, and the rancour between the two men is so great that few believe they could ever sit in parliament together.
Mr Sharif's younger brother, Shahbaz, was also disqualified from the election on crime allegations on Saturday. Shahbaz blamed "orders from the top" for the ban.
The Sharif brothers can appeal to a panel of high court judges, but their chances are considered slim, given that Gen Musharraf has stuffed the court with his supporters.
The boycott debate exposes rifts within the political opposition and wider Pakistani society about how best to resist the draconian emergency laws that Gen Musharraf imposed on November 3rd. "There are two views in Pakistan now. One is that you can change the system by being part of it. The other is boycott," said one analyst, Rasul Bakhsh Rais.
Although Mr Sharif favours a boycott "in principle", Ms Bhutto and others say it would be a mistake to give Gen Musharraf a clear run. They are joined by the US, which has a powerful sway on events in Pakistan.
Mr Sharif's party is also divided. "A boycott only makes sense if the opposition is united, and if it is part of a wider street agitation. But without that, it means nothing," said Ayaz Amir, a newspaper columnist who hopes to run under Mr Sharif's banner.
Critics say a free and fair poll in January is virtually impossible. Although 5,000 political prisoners have been freed, senior judges and lawyers remain in detention. Yesterday police prevented the US ambassador, Anne Patterson, from visiting a lawyers' leader, Aitzaz Ahsan, who is under house arrest.
Mr Sharif has called for the reinstatement of senior judges dismissed by Gen Musharraf, especially Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the deposed chief justice who remains under house arrest in Islamabad. Gen Musharraf has said he will never reinstate Chaudhry and has warned that the January poll will take place "come hell or high water".
Ms Bhutto had good news from Spain, where prosecutors shelved a two-year investigation into money-laundering allegations against her. Ms Bhutto, her husband Asif Zardari, and party officials were accused of transferring funds from a company that profited from the Iraqi "oil for food" scheme into a Spanish bank. Prosecutors said they hit a dead end after Pakistan withdrew co-operation after Gen Musharraf's "reconciliation" with Ms Bhutto.