ISLAMABAD, 13 May 2008 — Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pulled his party out of Pakistan’s six-week-old coalition government yesterday, plunging the volatile country back into political uncertainty.
Sharif, whose Pakistan Muslim League (N) was the second-largest member of a four-party alliance, made the announcement after failing to break a deadlock with its main coalition partner over the reinstatement of dismissed judges.
Sharif made the restoration of 60 judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf in November the main condition for joining the coalition led by the party of Asif Ali Zardari, the political successor of the late Benazir Bhutto.
Three days of talks in London between Sharif and Zardari, whose Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leads the coalition, ended on Sunday without any breakthrough.
“Our ministers will meet the prime minister tomorrow and will submit their resignations,” Sharif told a news conference yesterday. The PML-N will join lawyers in protesting against the government, Sharif said. “I will be at the forefront of the protests,” he said. “We will not rest until the judges are restored and Musharraf is ousted.”
Nine of the 24 ministers in Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s Cabinet belong to the PML-N, including Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who was due to present the annual budget in weeks with the country sliding deeper into economic problems.
Sharif, who submitted his nomination papers to contest a by-election due in late June, said his party would continue to support the PPP government despite quitting the Cabinet. “We will sit together... We are not going to sit on the opposition benches for the time being,” he said. “We will not take any step which will benefit Musharraf,” Sharif added.
There have been high hopes that the alliance between the two main political parties would restore civilian rule in a country that has been led by generals, like Musharraf, for more than half the time since it was founded in 1947.
“It’s a sad day for Pakistan,” said former government minister and political analyst Shafqat Mahmood. “The people of Pakistan wanted this coalition to take forward the democratic process, restore the judiciary and, eventually, get rid of Musharraf.”
— Additional input from agencies
