Sharif’s probable participation in elections also alters Benazir Bhutto’s gameplan. According to Friday’s The News, “The PML-N is sure to get a fillip to its political fortunes. At one level, Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif, it appears, did strike a deal with a military dictator in exchange for living in exile and not spending time in a Pakistani prison... However, their conduct in recent months, particularly the refusal to budge from a position fervently opposed to the president seeking re-election while retaining the post of army chief together with the PPP’s apparent deal-making pursuits has made the Sharif brothers look principled. Arguably, they remain the most potent political force in Punjab...”

Dawn agreed: “The situation has put Ms Bhutto and her PPP in an awkward position... In the present circumstances her secret meeting with President Musharraf and the deal she now acknowledges she was negotiating with him will not exactly add to her popularity.”

Arrested powers

On Thursday Dawn commented on yet another significant case taken up by the court: “The Supreme Court’s drive for the recovery of missing people believed to be in the custody of the intelligence agencies is yielding results. On Tuesday, the court ordered the release of two men, one of whom was produced in court. Aleem Nasir, a German national, said that he had been arrested by the ISI at Lahore airport more than a month ago and was subsequently harassed and interrogated... By pointing out that the ISI was not a law enforcement agency, the Supreme Court has once again drawn attention to the need for setting operational parameters for the agencies that seem to be answerable to no one for their actions.”

TAP three times

Daily Times (August 21) considered the feasibility of the $10 billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) gas pipeline after the Pakistan government awarded the contract for its to the United States’ International Oil Company. There’s a bit of great game strategising to all this: “At least two states, Pakistan and Afghanistan, are in the mood to respond positively to American diplomacy as it moves to outflank two rivals in the region: old Iran and new Russia. In Turkmenistan, the new president, Mr Berdymukhamedov, may be amenable too, but it is hard to tell. America has been opposed to the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, while Russia, which takes Turkmenistan’s gas at cheap rates, puts it into its international pipeline and sells it at a high price in Europe, is opposed to Turkmenistan selling gas to anyone else. Moscow cannot have been pleased by this new chessboard move on TAP pipeline, but America has seen advantage in making the move after what happened to the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. It may also be responding to Russia’s resumption of spy flights over American strategic sites.” There are, however, security hurdles: “The geography of terrorist raids in Afghanistan forbids all construction projects.” North and South Waziristan, through which the pipeline would have to pass, too are tense.

Degrees of eligibility

Ghinwa Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto’s sister-in-law and leader of a breakaway PPP faction, got her bachelor’s degree from Punjab University this week. It makes her eligible to contest elections. (Daily Times, August 23.) Also, “an application was moved in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, seeking an early decision on a petition challenging ‘Sanads’ (seminary degrees) of 68 Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal members of parliament and provincial assemblies” (Dawn, August 23).