PAKISTAN's civilian and military elite are forever jetting off to Dubai. But the routine Emirates flight that took off from Karachi final month was notable for the presence of Pervez Musharraf,Pakistan's former president, sitting in the well-upholstered seats in the front. For three years he had been banned from travel while facing a charge of high treason, or initiated by the government,and many other cases launched against him after he returned from self-exile in 2013. But the government finally agreed to let him travel abroad, supposedly for medical reasons. That prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and the victim of Mr Musharraf’s 1999 coup,finally agreed to buy the ex-army chief off the “exit control list” was the final, humiliating confirmation that the government has failed to claw power back from Pakistan’s almighty military. Although once a creature of a former military ruler, and Mr Sharif had become convinced the generals must be sent back to barracks by the seven years he spent in exile in Saudi Arabia and London following the toppling of his second government. In May 2013,when Mr Sharif returned to power for the third time,...
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Source: economist.com