The return of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to a popular welcome after seven years of exile, on a special plane provided by the King of Saudi Arabia, serves as a reminder of the folly that is military intervention in politics.

Sharif should have been allowed to return to his homeland when the Supreme Court ruled that he had an inalienable to do so. But soon after the Supreme Court’s judgement, the government unlawfully bundled him out of the country.

Having failed to implement the law of the land, General Musharraf has belatedly enabled the same outcome that would have resulted from implementing the apex court’s ruling. Quite clearly, international factors are more important in the eyes of Pakistan’s ruling generals than Pakistan’s own institutions.

General Musharraf took power in a 1999 military coup after toppling Sharif. After first jailing and then exiling the ousted prime minister, the general vowed that he and another popular former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, would never be allowed to return to Pakistan’s politics.

Bhutto returned to Pakistan on October 18 to a tumultuous welcome and now Sharif has also returned. Apologists of military rule ridiculed this columnist — and many others — for repeatedly advocating the return of both major party leaders. Now it is our turn to ridicule those who think that a coup-making general’s ‘vision’ trumps the fundamental rules of politics.

Politicians with a support base can never be kept out of a country’s politics forever. If only Pakistan’s generals and the oligarchy that supports them understood that, Pakistan would actually get on with normal politics with all its flaws and weaknesses and get somewhere. Right now, we are simply going around in circles.

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