Source: CBC News
Political uncertainty gripped Pakistan’s fragile coalition government Tuesday as Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani refused to accept the resignations of nine members of cabinet until his party leader returned from abroad.
Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif ordered his party members to resign from the six-week-old governing alliance because the cabinet was refusing to immediately reinstate dozens of judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf last November.
Gilani said he had the resignation letters but wouldn’t accept them until he had spoken to his party leader, Asif Ali Zardari, who was due back from a foreign trip late Tuesday.
“Let’s do a last-minute effort so that this issue is somehow resolved,” Gilani said.
Musharraf’s move against the judges touched off nationwide political protests that eventually led to elections in Pakistan, won by his rivals in Sharif’s party and the late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party.
A withdrawal of Sharif’s party raises the prospect of the fledgling government collapsing, casting Pakistan into political turmoil just as it faces mounting economic woes and tries to maintain a fragile truce with Islamic militants along the Afghan border.
Sharif said his party would remain part of the ruling coalition, which is led by the Pakistan Peoples Party. Party leader Zardari is Bhutto’s widower.
“We will do nothing that will benefit the dictator,” Sharif said Tuesday, referring to Musharraf.
Zardari’s party expressed “respect” for the decision and said the parties remained close.
But a spokesman for Sharif sharpened the tone Tuesday, accusing members of Zardari’s party of “serving the interests” of Musharraf by blocking the judges’ restoration.
“Such loyalists of Musharraf are to be blamed for our decision to quit the cabinet,” Sadiqul Farooq said.
A permanent split in the coalition would boost Musharraf, a former army strongman who has taken a back seat since the new government took power in late March.
Bhutto and Sharif fought mercilessly for power during the 1990s, a decade associated with rampant corruption and government incompetence that paved the way for Musharraf’s 1999 military coup.
However, both suffered under the former army strongman and shared an ambition to re-establish the supremacy of parliament over a presidency that currently has the power to dismiss the government.
With files from the Associated Press
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Tags: Cabinet, Coalition, Government, Judges, Prime Minister, Resignation, Yousaf Raza Gilani
3 responses so far ↓
1 nehl abbasi // May 16, 2008 at 6:49 pm
wel sharif is a man of principles,
if zardari had no intentions of restoring the judges then why in gods name did he sign the muree declaration?
i think he did so to gain popularity but i guess he didnt think that al would go in the wrong direction.
people now a days are talking about zardari as a much bigger villan then musharraf.this is exactly what mushy wanted.he knew that zardari didnt had the guts to rule pakistan and just six weeks after coming in power he is already folowing in mushy’s foot steps
for instance just today he has appointed one of the mushy’s culprit as the governor of punjab without discussing it with pmln.
ppp has accepted the governor of sindh from mqm when the party only has 20 seats in the sindh assembly and in punjab where pmln has the majority seats, zardari didnt even bother asking them or even discussing with them about the appointment of the governor of punjab.
2 najmi // May 16, 2008 at 8:03 pm
It is not known to many that Salmaan Taseer was the moving spirit behind PPP’s Prisoners’ Release Committee (PRC) in which journalist cum MNA Ayaz Amir, who is now aligned with the PML-N, was also a major part. The PRC had organised functions in different cities where the PPP leaders and workers, who had been physically tortured during General Ziaul Haq’s martial law, were called to recite “zulm kee dastanay” (tales of persecution and torture) in the presence of Benazir Bhutto.
we must respect the majority leader decision.only ppp have in all 4 provinces @ they are the only national party in pakistan. nawaz should be thankfull to them to giving him chance to sit with central government.
3 nehl abbasi // May 17, 2008 at 12:26 pm
nawaz had no wil or intentions of sitting in the government but zardari begged him to do so.so zardari should be thankful to sharif that he honoured his request.
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