ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan's military regime will have to hand power to a civilian administration as soon as possible or take the blame for the "disintegration" of the country, ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif said in an interview published Tuesday.
Speaking to Japan's Mainichi Shimbun from his prison cell in the high security Attock Fort outside the capital, Sharif said "this government has failed completely and it will have to revert to civilian rule."
"It is not a choice or an option available to it. It is a demand that has to be met as early as possible to save the country from disintegration," he said in the interview published in English-language dailies here.
Sharif on Monday won a small victory against the military regime that toppled him in a bloodless coup last year. The Sindh High Court threw out his conviction for terrorism and rejected a state appeal demanding his execution.
But he is still languishing in prison with a life sentence for hijacking related to events on the night of the military takeover, when he tried to stop a plane carrying coup leader General Pervez Musharraf from landing.
He said the Musharraf regime had failed in every aspect of its ambitious reform agenda, including stamping out corruption and reviving the debt-ridden economy.
"No government in the 52-year history of our country has lost its credibility as quickly as this government has," he said.
"There is disharmony and chaos…and internationally we are a discredited country.
"There is flight of capital and manpower and the government's propagandists are misleading the people, but the situation is such that they themselves do not believe their own propaganda."
Musharraf, who rode to power on a wave of anti-Sharif sentiment, last week admitted for the first time that his popularity was waning and there was a "perception of discouragement and despondency."
He said, "If we were not performing, I would be the first person to be thinking of ways to bring somebody who can run Pakistan better."
But he said the perception of Pakistan's failures had been blown out of proportion by intellectuals and the media and there was no need to rush in a civilian administration.
Pakistan's supreme court has validated the coup and given Musharraf three years to complete his reforms and hold general elections.
Sharif said the Pakistani military has no respect for democracy and had held every civilian government hostage.
"The moment a civilian set-up is established a systematic campaign of sabotage is started to undermine the authority of that government," he said.
