As he prepares to return to his home country next week, Pakistan’s exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has said President Pervez Musharraf is “unacceptable” to him whether re-elected in uniform or without it.

“Uniform has no place in our Constitution, has no place in politics. An army has no role in politics according to our law and according to our Constitution,” the 57-year-old leader said in an interview with CNN’s “Late Edition” on Sunday.

Asked if he was ready, like Pakistan People’s Party leader Benazir Bhuttto, to accept Musharraf if he steps down as army chief, Sharif replied: “Whether he gets himself elected in uniform or without uniform, (he) is unacceptable. And this is why the total... the entire civil society , the 160 million people are struggling for”.

Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf in the 1999 coup and sent to exile a year later, has said he will go back to Pakistan on September 10 following a Supreme Court order directing the Pakistan government to allow him to return.

The Pakistan Muslim League-N chief said he apprehended his arrest on return. “Musharraf says if I come back to Pakistan, he’ll arrest me. There are no cases against me. If he wants to manufacture cases against me, that is his choice because he doesn’t believe in the rule of law, he doesn’t believe in the constitution, ethics, morality. He believes in might is right, he believes in the law of the jungle,” Sharif said.