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Pak. to contest EC move on Sharif

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD AUG. 31. The Pakistan Government today said that it would contest the decision of the election authorities to allow the former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, to run for the October elections.

An official announcement came amidst indications that the former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, has decided to withdraw from the election in protest against the decision of the authorities to reject the papers of another former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto.

The official spokesman said there is no way it would let Mr. Sharif stand in the election and maintained that he is a convict on two counts and had voluntarily proceeded abroad. Mr. Sharif along with his family went on exile in December 2000 as part of a deal with the Musharraf regime. The then President was supposed to have exonerated him of all the charges in return for his willingness to go on exile.

A statement attributed to Mr. Sharif, supposedly sent from Riyadh, said that he was deeply saddened over the rejection of the nomination papers of Ms. Bhutto and could not be a party to the arbitrary and divisive politics of the military regime. Demonstration of solidarity with Ms. Bhutto by Mr. Sharif, should be a matter of concern to the managers of the Musharraf Government.

The decisions of the election authorities to accept the nomination papers of Mr. Sharif and reject that of Ms. Bhutto had come as big surprise to political observers. Breaking its silence over the issue, an official spokesman dismissed the impression that the Government was behind the move regarding the filing of nomination papers.

``The impression being created by vested interests of any Government involvement in the electoral process is baseless,'' the spokesman said. To a question on rejection of nomination papers of Ms. Bhutto, the spokesman said the autonomous Election Commission was solely responsible to oversee the entire process.

There is little doubt that the developments revolving round the two former Prime Ministers have caused acute embarrassment to the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf.

For months now, Gen. Musharraf has been asserting that Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Sharif, having failed to give `good governance' despite two chances each as Prime Minister have no role in Pakistan politics.

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