Musharraf returns for polls, vows to save Pakistan

He returns after a four-year exile and faces arrest

Former President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, on Sunday ended nearly four years of self-exile defying threats of arrest and assassination by Taliban, saying that he returned home to “save” Pakistan and would face all “challenges” that lay ahead.

Musharraf, 69, along with a delegation of around 150 people, including supporters from his All Pakistan Muslim League and journalists, landed at Jinnah International Airport here by a chartered Emirates flight from Dubai.

Talking to reporters accompanying him from Dubai to Karachi, a smiling Musharraf said: “It is (a) very emotional (moment). I'm going back after four years.”

“There are a lot of challenges. There are security challenges, legal challenges, political challenges. But I will face those,” Musharraf clad in an off white Pathan suit said as he made his way out of the aircraft.

“Where are the people who said I will never return home? I have been receiving death threats and some people have been trying to scare me but I have returned home for the sake of my country and people,” an emotional Musharraf told his supporters.

The former commando-turned-politician said he would soon be launching a countrywide campaign of public rallies and media interaction.

Former judge is interim Premier
Pakistan’s Election Commission appointed a former judge, Mir Hazar Khan Khoso, to head a caretaker government before May general elections, after leading political parties failed to agree on a candidate. Khoso, 83, will take the oath as interim Prime Minister as early as today to oversee the transition, which follows the March 16 dissolution of the 342-member National Assembly at the end of its five years.