LAHORE, Pakistan - Pakistani election authorities on Thursday granted preliminary permission to exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his wife Begum Kulsoom Nawaz to contest the October elections, officials said. Nomination papers for Sharif and Kulsoom, who are in exile in Saudi Arabia with almost 20 members of the Sharif clan, were filed in separate constituencies in their home city of Lahore in Pakistan's east.

However the former first couple's candidacies could still be blocked if appeals are filed against them by September 6, election official Shaukat Iqbal said. Sharif is technically disqualified from the polls under laws barring candidates with criminal convictions. Sharif was convicted of tax evasion and plane hijacking in 2000, several months after now-president Pervez Musharraf overthrew and jailed him in a bloodless coup in October 1999.

He is also disqualified from running for the prime ministership under a law brought in by Musharraf, which bans former premiers from a third term. Sharif was prime minister from 1990 to 1993 and from 1997 until the coup two years later. He and his extended family left for Saudi Arabia in December 2000 after he was released from prison in a deal brokered by the Saudi royal family.

The Musharraf regime says the Sharif clan signed an agreement to stay out of Pakistan for 10 years as part of the deal. The Sharifs vehemently insist no such agreement exists. The alleged agreement has never been made public. Sharif stepped down from the leadership of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) in July citing the bans on his candidacy, and his younger brother Shahbaz, also in exile, replaced him to lead the party's election campaign.

Shahbaz's nomination papers for two separate provincial assembly seats have also been accepted, however they too are subject to appeal. The appeal period starts next week. The list of approved candidates will not be announced until September 13. Musharraf told AFP in an interview last week that hewould deport Shahbaz Sharif immediately back to Saudi Arabia if he tried to return for the elections, citing the alleged 10-year exile agreement. - AFP

As a result, while the Internet may ultimately support change, this will more probably occur in an evolutionary manner, said the report, titled "You've Got Dissent". "The Chinese government has successfully stifled the spread of Internet-based dissent primarily by employing old "Leninist techniques'," it said.

These include strict government regulations, surveillance, arrests, confiscation of equipment, and the use of informants. At least 25 people have been arrested in China over the past two years because of their on-line activities, the report said. According to the Rand Institute, there also is evidence Chinese authorities are using the Internet for their own political purposes, spreading criticism of dissidents electronically and bombarding dissidents' e-mail addresses with thousands of bogus messages. "Predictions that the Internet would bring revolutionary political change to China were exaggerated," said Michael Chase, who co-authored the report with noted China specialist James Mulvenon.

"The Chinese government's attempts to promote self-censorship are succeeding. The Internet is likely to support change, but it will probably be evolutionary." China blocks a large number of Internet sites, which feature dissident views and some foreign new sites as well as content such as pornography. Authorities also launch periodic crackdowns such as a recent one against popular Internet cafes after a fire at one in Beijing killed 24 young people in June.

The use of the Internet has spread quickly in mainland China, growing from about one million users in October 1997 to more than 33 million by January this year. Dissident political groups have adopted Internet communications, using e-mail and bulletin board sites as a way to quickly and discreetly spread information and ideas.

Such groups adopt tactics including "Internet guerilla warfare" -- spamming e-mail messages to large groups of people, sometimes including government leaders, the report said. This can prove a boon to dissent, the authors said, for example in April 1999 when between 10,000 and 15,000 supporters of the Falungong movement appeared unannounced at a protest in Beijing.

The event reportedly was organized largely through the use of the Internet as well as mobile phones. Additionally, dissidents who have fled China can also use the Internet to remain active, creating websites and e-mailing "electronic magazines".

Such activities could prove harder and harder for authorities to suppress as Internet use expands beyond the mainly young and urban group who currently have access, the authors argue, perhaps eventually helping to push the country towards reform. - AFP