Trying for a fourth term.

CALL it a game of chess, or musical chairs. It has long been played on the country's political stage. The pawn is interchangeable, and so is the occupant of the chair. Nawaz Sharif's return after four years of self-exile seems very much a part of the plot. It was certainly not the homecoming of the dissenter that the former prime minister appeared to be when he was allowed by the court to go abroad for medical treatment under a pledge that he would return to the country to serve his sentence.

He has now returned four years later to VVIP protocol, signifying the changing sands of Pakistani politics. Proclaimed an absconder, Nawaz Sharif was already granted bail by the court before he landed at Islamabad airport. Ahead of the elections, his supporters believe that a fourth term as prime minister is assured.

Predictably, his speech at Lahore's Minar-i-Pakistan lacked defiance and anti-establishment rhetoric. It was more about the personal grief he went through while in detention. There was no mention of 'vote ko izzat do' as long as he was back in the good books of the powers that be.

It is not clear whether Nawaz Sharif can mobilise mass support.

It was indeed an impressive show in terms of the crowd bussed in from across the province, but mass fervour was missing. It was not the kind of welcome usually given to popular leaders. He has returned to a country that has changed over the past few years. The stage for Sharif's return was set after the formation of the PML-N-led government, with his brother as prime minister following the ouster of the PTI government in April 2022.

It was a dramatic shift in Pakistani politics with the end of the hybrid rule under Imran Khan. It brought together the PML-N and the establishment in a new power arrangement. Sharif waited for another 18 months to get all the legal hurdles removed before ending his self-exile and making a bid for another term in the top office. It was a done deal.

There was nothing unusual about this shifting alignment in Pakistan's political power game. The fall from grace of Imran Khan led to another round of hybrid rule, with the return of the PML-N as the establishment's partner. While Shehbaz Sharif was the prime minister, it was the elder brother who ruled from London. Every important policy decision needed the approval of the elder Sharif. His closest confidant and a family member returned as the country's economic czar.

In an ironic twist of events, it was now the turn of the PTI...