Nawaz Sharif

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Islamic Democratic Alliance swept the Senate elections, giving him a solid majority in both houses of Pakistan's Parliament. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto charged intimidation and vote rigging and vowed to boycott the Senate. Sharif's party won 23 of 46 contested seats, Bhutto's won five. The 217-member National Assembly makes laws, but the 87-member Senate can block legislation.

Opposition supporters set fire to cars and stoned buildings around Rawalpindi, a day after Pakistan's Supreme Court barred two of their leaders from elected office. The rulings upheld an existing ban on former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif because of a criminal conviction related to the 1999 military coup in which former President Pervez Musharraf ousted him. The rulings also removed his brother as head of the government in Punjab province.

This country will not give up its nuclear research program, even if it has to suffer hardships through loss of foreign aid, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Saturday. The official APP news agency quoted him as telling a rally in the northwestern town of Bannu that "foreign quarters" are accusing Pakistan of making an atomic bomb, despite its assurances that its nuclear program is peaceful.

President Clinton agreed to meet in Washington with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today to discuss resolving the Asian nation's increasingly "dangerous" conflict with India over long-disputed Kashmir, the White House said. Before agreeing to the meeting, Clinton conferred by telephone with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, said a White House official who declined to be named. Officials said Sharif requested the meeting.

Indian army troops captured more peaks, and Pakistani shells blew up an oil tanker, as battles in Kashmir raged despite an agreement between President Clinton and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to push for peace. There has been no slackening of nearly ceaseless shelling from both sides in the past two months. The Indian military, reporting some of the bloodiest fighting yet, said 55 mercenaries and nine Indian soldiers were killed in an all-night battle.

Exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had nomination papers filed for him to run for parliament in his stronghold of Lahore, defying President Pervez Musharraf's ban on his return. Sharif's attorney said he submitted forms to the Election Commission for Sharif, his wife and his brother. They are in Saudi Arabia. Musharraf seized power from Sharif in 1999 and has promised parliamentary elections in early October to restore democracy.

Exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif withdrew his candidacy for October's parliamentary elections and threw his support to ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The announcement came a day after election officials in Bhutto's home city of Larkana rejected her bid to run for a National Assembly seat. Officials were scheduled to rule today on Bhutto's nomination papers for two other seats.

Pakistani military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf issued a decree that seemed to bar ex-Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif from holding party offices because of court convictions. Proclaimed in the name of figurehead President Mohammed Rafiq Tarar, it said any person disqualified from being a parliament member or convicted of a criminal offense involving moral turpitude or under the Anti-Terrorism Act could not be an officeholder.

Ousted Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto voiced fears of vote-rigging in today's general election, which her main rival, Nawaz Sharif, said he was confident of winning. Bhutto said at her family village in the southern province of Sindh that she had reports that the caretaker government planned to rig the vote in 63 constituencies of the 217-seat National Assembly. She added that she will not accept the result if that occurs.