Pro-President Pervez Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) plans to seek disqualification of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from contesting the forthcoming byelection to the National Assembly when his nomination papers will be scrutinized by the returning officers. “His nomination papers are rejected because of his convictions,” Returning Officer Raja Qamaruzzaman had observed while disqualifying Nawaz Sharif for the first time on Dec. 3 last. The convictions cited by the returning officer behind the former premier's disqualification still stand and have not been revoked by the competent authority, a PML-Q leader told Saudi Gazette. He said that there had been no change whatsoever that has rendered Nawaz qualified to contest the election. The PML-Q leader said his party candidate, fighting against Sharif, would raise objections to his qualification to be a candidate, also referring to the previous rejection of his candidacy papers by the returning officer. “Our leadership has decided to field candidates for all the seats including those where Sharif brothers would be in the run in the by-polls,” former information minister Mohammad Ali Durrani said. He said that the PML-Q nominees would raise questions about the qualification of their rivals before the returning officers, as has been the usual practice. Last time, Sharif was ousted from the electoral fight on the objection of his rival candidate, Khawaja Tahir Zia. “Nawaz cannot contest the election because he was sentenced, convicted and declared a terrorist in the hijacking case,” Zia's lawyer, A.Z. Shami, had argued. Nawaz's lawyer, Khawaja Haris Ahmad, had said that his client could not be ruled out of the election because a five-year time limit for the disqualification of convics had expired. Some PML-Q leaders are not sure that their party would get Nawaz's papers rejected saying that by the time the form is filled, there would be a new administration in Punjab. This factor, they believe, will tremendously go in Sharifs' favor. After the rejection of their papers, neither Nawaz nor Shahbaz had approached the Lahore High Court against their disqualification saying that they would not ask for justice from judges who had taken oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) of Nov. 3. Differences continue to exist among lawyers on Nawaz's qualification to contest an elected office. One argument is that since only the sentence awarded to him in the plane hijacking and tax evasion cases was pardoned by the president of Pakistan in 2000 while his conviction remained intact, which barred him from being a candidate to the national and provincial assembly. __
