Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif returned home on Saturday on a special flight after a four-year self-imposed exile in the UK to head his party and try to secure a record fourth term in the general ele𓂃ctions expected to be held in January.
The 73-year-old Pakistan Muslim League-Nawa🍸z (PML-N) supremo flew in 🧔from Dubai to Islamabad on the 'Umeed-e-Pakistan' chartered plane.
Sharif's legal team will meet him to take his biometrics and submit it🎀 to the Islamabad High Court as part of the bail process approved by the court on October 19.
After staying an hour or ꦦso in Islamabad, h꧅e will leave for Lahore to address a rally at Minar-e-Pakistan.
His party has been trying to paint his homecoming as a hope for Pakistan. No call was given for party workers to welcome him at the airport but 🌌dozens of supporters have reached the Islamabad airport.
About 150 PML-N supporters, who were onboard on the special flight, kept on chanting slo🍬gans throughout the fꦰlight.
Sharif was calm dur😼ing the flight and apparently reading the notes for his address in Lahore in the evening.
Speaking to reporters at Dubai airport, the three-time former prime minister 🧸deplored the "very chaotic" situation in Pakistan and expressed confidence that his party was "competent" to take the cash-strapped country out of the present crisis.
“I’m going back to Pakistan after four years today,” S♛harif said. “When I was leavi🍃ng Pakistan and going abroad I had no feeling of happiness but today I am happy.”
The oustꦓed premier added that it would have been very good if the situation of the country was bette෴r today as compared to 2017.
“I get very꧙ worried and disappointed seeing the situation in the country. The country that had to move forward is going backward now economically and unity-wise.”
Terming the situation as “wo🧸rrisome”, Sharif said there was still hope and “we should not let it slip from our hands as we are capable of fixing it because we spoilt it ourselves”.
He said the country had to get back on its feet as nobody wꩵould lꦗift us up.
“When I remember Pakistan back then, I get hurt, we had said goodbye to the International Monetary Fꦐund, electricity was cheap, the rupee was stable, there was employment, roti cost Rs 4, a poor family’s child went to school and medicin🧸es were also cheap.”
Sharif said only the Election Commission of Pakistan (E༒CP) can decide when poll🦩s will be held, adding that it was the only competent authority and a fair election commission.
“Whatever date the ECP announces, everyone will [abide by it]. My priority is whatever the ECP🥃 says. Pakistan has a fair ECP today and I feel it will make the best decision with regards to the eleꦦction.
Lamenting the treatment meted out to him in the past, he said he was the person who had gone through 150 coꦏurt hearings.
“Not just me but also my daughter. She even got a clean chღit. She had to get it. She didn’t have a position during my government, not even an office.”
He said fake cases were not just filed against his family inclu📖ding former prime minister and his brother Shehbaz Sharif but also ex-interior minister Rana Sanaullah Khan and 🧸PML-N leader Hanif Abbasi.
“I even said before leaving that I leave everything to Allah (God) and I still continue doing tha๊t.”
He smirked and said “We are the May 28 ones” when asked about the May 9 viole𝓰nce allegedly carried out by the Imran Khan's party.
Pakista♊n conducted nuclear tests on May 28, 1998, under the le⛄adership of the then prime minister Sharif.
Sharif left for London in November 2019 on medical grounds after a higher court granted him bail for four weeks. By that time, he had served half of his seven-year j𒉰ail term in the Al-Azizia corruption case.
During the four years since then, Sharif was declared a proclaimed offender in Al-Azizia and Avenfield corruption cases for his con𓆏tinuous absence from the proceedings on appeals against the sentences.
The Islamabad High Court on Thursday granted him protective bail until Octobe🧜r 24 in both cases after the Natio💝nal Accountability Bureau, Pakistan's anti-corruption agency, did not oppose the petitions filed by him.
He stepped down as Pakistan's prime minister in 2017 after he was disqualified for life from holding public office by the Supreme Court after a probe into his family's wealth fo⛦𝔉llowing the 2016 Panama Papers leak.
Sharif has consistently denied any wrongdoing and termed it💖 as a politically m🌺otivated case.
