As elections near, can Nawaz Sharif outfox Pak army to stage a comeback?

Pakistan’s three-time former Prime Minister Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz Sharif and his son-in-law Muhammad Safdar were sentenced to prison terms for impropriety in the ownership of certain properties in the United Kingdom. It was a curious case, where Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was not able to prove any graft or outright corruption against the Sharifs, while the defendants were unable to convincingly show the trail linking the ownership of the properties to the source of the funds used for purchase. The court based its decision on a presumption that the inability or unwillingness of the accused somehow proved that production of such materials would have hurt their cause. Notwithstanding the potential siphoning of money from Pakistan to the UK in the 1990s by the Sharifs, the conduct of the case was blatant political victimisation. Those who have watched Sharif and Pakistan’s political trajectory over the past 30 years know that he started off as the protégé of military dictator Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s. While his family already had a well-established business, their fortunes multiplied exponentially after his rise to power, first in the Punjab province and then to the central high office.