Nawaz Sharif confident of Pakistan landslide

May 03, 2013 00:22

Thirteen years ago Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to life in prison. Today he is confident of winning a historic third term at Pakistan's general election and fixing the country's most intractable problems.

Calm and collected at the end of a quick visit to Islamabad, where he addressed a hot and sweaty hotel meeting room packed with businessmen, the 63-year-old former prime minister presents himself as a statesman-in-waiting.

"Our people are very excited. They are waiting for a response from the field and things look good. They, in fact, look better than what they were in 1997," he told AFP, referring to the landslide that last swept him into power. Businessmen and industrialists traditionally regard Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N party as better on the economy than the outgoing Pakistan People's Party and he comes back, time and again, to stressing his economic credentials for the May 11 election.

He won admiration for turning Pakistan into a nuclear power in 1998 and for building a high-speed motorway from the northwestern city of Peshawar to Lahore, his home town and Pakistan's cultural capital on the Indian border.

As the scion of one of Pakistan's richest families, in the early 1990s he privatised much of the industry that the PPP had nationalised.

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