Stop supporting a drowning man: Shahbaz Sharif | World News - Hindustan Times
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Stop supporting a drowning man: Shahbaz Sharif

Hindustan Times | ByVijay Dutt, London
Nov 07, 2007 02:02 AM IST

Stop supporting a drowning man: Shahbaz Sharif, said Shahbaz Sharif. Vijay Dutt reports.

No free or fair election is possible under Pervez Musharraf, whether in or out of uniform, said Shahbaz Sharif, President of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and brother of Nawaz Sharif, who stayed back in London on the advice of his brother to direct the fight against the military regime.

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"There can be no deal with him, he has to go to save Pakistan plunging into disaster and disintegration. Pakistan has already reached the brink of disaster."

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Expressing disappointment at Western governments' response to President General Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule, he said: "America and the rest of the West must realise that Musharraf is a drowning man who is drowning Pakistan along with himself."

In an interview at his party office near Oxford Street, Shahbaz said, "What we expect from them (Western governments) is to ensure that if this law is not rolled back, and Musharraf does not step back ... then they must cease to support him."
"…Our point has been that only an elected dispensation by the will of the people can fight this menace of extremism. God knows what amount of money has gone into the military sector, $11 billion or so but he has miserably failed. Eight years on it's a military coup against his own self."

"Emergency is stipulated in the constitution but not for keeping an individual clinging to power. The fact is that Musharraf who on staging the coup on October 12, 1999 said he would replace same democracy with a real one has after eight years staged a coup against his own failed regime. It is a clear proof of his failure to fight against terrorism for which the west supported him both financially and militarily."

Asked why former prime minister Benazir Bhutto remains one leader who had not been arrested, Sharif said, "I don't know. You can make your own guess. But this is all over that the Americans cobbled this deal between Musharraf and Bhutto."

"We have to shun our differences for with our intervention only the dirty and bloody mess can be tackled. A politically elected dispensation alone can fight the menace of terrorism. What was achieved by Musharraf with $11 billion pumped in for him to fight terrorism?'

The former Punjab chief minister added that his brother Nawaz Sharif would be in London sooner rather than later and that he himself would return to Pakistan soon.

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