Election ban for former military ruler of Pakistan after return

Over a week ago, a judge in the remote northern district of Chitral gave him approval to run in the May 11 election, even though he was disqualified in three other districts for suspending the constitution and sacking senior judges while in power. Pakistan’s political system allows a candidate to run for multiple seats simultaneously.

Lawyers challenged the decision in Chitral, and a three-member appellate tribunal disqualified Mr Musharraf from running in the district. He can appeal tagainst the ruling in the Supreme Court.

The tribunal’s decision is one of the biggest blows in what has been a bumpy return for Mr Musharraf after over four years in self-imposed exile.

He seized power in a military coup in 1999 and ruled for nearly a decade before he was forced to step down and left the country in 2008 because of growing discontent with his rule. He returned to Pakistan last month to stage a political comeback, but he has been met with low levels of public support, a variety of legal challenges and Taliban death threats.

The former military strongman was only met with a couple thousand people at the airport in the southern city of Karachi when his plane from Dubai landed on March 24. A few days later, an angry lawyer threw a shoe at him at a court building in Karachi.

Mr Musharraf faces a variety of legal charges, including some related to the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. He has not been arrested because he arranged pre-arrest bail before he arrived.