Thaindian News

Islamabad, Feb 1 (IANS) Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif has decided against contesting a parliamentary by-poll to honour a pledge he had made to his Saudi Arabian benefactors who had given him shelter after he was overthrown in a military coup in 1999, a media report Monday said.
Sharif “has preferred his relations with his Saudi well-wishers to contesting the bypolls and left the people of his (Lahore) constituency at the mercy of his successor”, Online news agency reported.

Quoting sources, it said Sharif had met his Saudi guarantors during his recent visit to London and sought clearance from them so that he could contest, but his request was flatly turned down. The by-poll is scheduled for March 10.

The Saudis made it clear to Sharif that if he violated the agreement and contested the polls ahead of December 20, 2010, “it would be considered an act of deceit”, Online said.

Sharif had gone into exile in Saudi Arabia in December 2000, a year after being overthrown by Pervez Musharraf, who was then Pakistan’s army chief and later also became the president.

Under the deal, Sharif was to have stayed away from Pakistan and refrained from contesting elections for 10 years but he returned amid high drama in September 2007, was sent back and again returned.

Insiders in Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) were quoted as saying he had decided to stay away from the by-polls after consulting his family members, including brother Shahbaz Sharif. They “were not in favor of undermining their relations with the Saudi royal family because they were sharing business interests with certain Saudi princes and could not put them at stake”, the Online report said.

Shahbaz Sharif, who is the chief minister of Punjab province, had accompanied his elder brother into exile and had returned with him.

Saudi government sources told Online that the kingdom’s intelligence chief, Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz, and other senior functionaries were in contact with Sharif and had repeatedly reminded him of the accord reached during the Musharraf regime.