ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif has said that President Asif Zardari wants to drag the nation toward midterm elections, Geo TV reported late Friday.
In an interview after his electoral disqualification, Sharif said that no third force could come into power if the government showed maturity and responsibility.
“I will not come in their way if President Zardari restores the deposed judges,” he said.
He further said that Zardari had backed out from the promises he made with his party.
The democratic revolution could rise in the days to come and it must happen, he added.
The former prime minister said that deposed judges were not being restored due to the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).
“We have not closed the door to contact the Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani,” he said.
He said Zardari should become the descendant of Benazir Bhutto, and not of former President Pervez Musharraf. Sharif blamed Pakistan’s government for the political turmoil set off by a court order barring him from elected office — unrest that he warned could be exploited by extremists.
Police and protesters clashed again yesterday in Islamabad on the main highway toward the international airport, a police official said, adding that no one was arrested.
In Multan, protesters organized hunger strike camps, torched an effigy of Zardari, burned tires and blocked several roads, an AFP reporter said.
Gilani yesterday appealed for calm among the protesters ransacking public property since the court ruling. Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz, also called for calm.
The prime minister told the National Assembly yesterday, We have neither dissolved nor suspended the Punjab Assembly.”
Lawmakers from Sharif’s party have condemned the controversial court ruling. Speaker of the Punjab Assembly, also from Sharif’s party, yesterday ordered opening of his office which was locked by police since Feb.25, the day governor’s rule was imposed on Punjab.
Speaker Rana Iqbal after assuming his office declared, “I will soon call the session of the legislative assembly. He termed presidential act to impose governor’s rule on Punjab “unconstitutional.”
He later told reporters, “I have called the session on Monday and also ordered an inquiry at whose orders Punjab Assembly was closed for legislators.”
Sharif accused Zardari of “declaring martial law on democracy,” a charge echoing the complaints that forced Musharraf to give up the presidency last year.
Sharif’s interview came amid a surge of political squabbling that is sure to distract the government of this nuclear-armed country from grappling with the Taleban and Al-Qaeda threat spreading from the tribal areas along the frontier with Afghanistan. Pakistan also is in the middle of a tense time with neighboring India over the deadly attack on Mumbai, and Sharif said Zardari’s pro-Western government isn’t going to be able to face any of its key tasks if it continues to wage political war on him.
“It cannot concentrate on the very big issues we are confronted with,” he said. “We have issues going on in the tribal area, we have this big issue in the Swat area, and we have a very ugly situation on our eastern border after the Bombay (Mumbai) killings.”
“I think we are heading for some sort of unfortunate situation,” Sharif said at his villa near Lahore, without elaborating.
“There are a lot of forces — the militants, the extremists — they are all there to take advantage.”The Supreme Court ruling upheld a ban on Sharif from contesting elections because of a past criminal conviction related to the 1999 military coup that ended his second term as prime minister and put Musharraf in power.
Sharif’s brother also was disqualified from continuing as head of the provincial government in Punjab. The government was dismissed and governor rule imposed on the state.
Other critics have alleged that Zardari influenced the Supreme Court decision to neutralize Sharif and consolidate the power of his own party, which holds a majority in the national Parliament. His supporters deny he had any role in the ruling.
