Pakistan’s membership in Commonwealth suspended

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN —  The Commonwealth followed through Thursday on a threat to suspend Pakistan’s membership, and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s opposition party said he would make another attempt to return home.

The Commonwealth, a 53-nation group composed mainly of Britain and its former colonies, voted at a meeting in Uganda to suspend Pakistan’s membership after President Pervez Musharraf failed to meet the association’s Thursday deadline for him to lift emergency rule and quit as army chief.

Musharraf, a general who also heads the army, imposed de facto martial law just before the Supreme Court was to rule on complaints that the constitution bars the army chief from running for elected office. He then dismissed the independent-minded high court’s judges and replaced them with loyalists.

Authorities also took independent TV news channels off the air and arrested thousands of lawyers, opposition party supporters and rights activists. The government says most of those detainees were freed this week.

The Commonwealth “welcomes the release of detainees, but is concerned about the arrest of journalists and lawyers,” its secretary-general, Don McKinnon, told reporters.

Pakistan was last kicked out of the organization in 1999 after Musharraf seized power by overthrowing Sharif. It took the country five years to be reinstated.

Sharif’s return from exile in Saudi Arabia would bolster Musharraf opponents ahead of parliamentary elections planned for January and pose a challenge to pro-Western opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in her bid to return to the post of prime minister.

Sharif’s plan was announced hours after the reconstituted Supreme Court swept away the last legal obstacles to Musharraf’s new five-year term as president. The Election Commission was cleared to certify his reelection by legislators last month.

The U.S.-allied leader was expected to give up his post as army chief within days in hopes of cooling domestic and foreign criticism over his suspension of the constitution and assumption of emergency powers three weeks ago.

Presidential spokesman Rashid Qureshi declined to say what Musharraf would do if Sharif tried to enter Pakistan. Sharif was swiftly deported to Saudi Arabia when he tried to return in September.

Musharraf has insisted that Sharif stay out of Pakistan until after the elections, which the West hopes will produce a moderate government able to turn the tide against Islamic militants.

Sharif’s party said he was coming to Pakistan to lead the party in the elections. He had been calling for parties to boycott the vote, but apparently changed his mind after Bhutto’s bloc and other rival opposition groups didn’t take up the idea.