Islamabad - Political tension was high in Pakistan on
Thursday as thousands protested an overnight court ruling that put an
election ban on the country's top opposition leaders, leading to the
imposition of federal rule in the most populous province of Punjab.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday barred former prime minister and
the country's most popular leader, Nawaz Sharif, from running for
parliament and nullified last year's election of his brother,
Shahbaz, to the Punjab Assembly, removing him from the seat of chief
minister.
The two brothers alleged that President Asif Ali Zardari was
behind the court verdict, widening political rifts between the two
traditional rivals, who allied briefly after February 2008 elections
to form a coalition government and successfully oust the former
military strongman Pervez Musharraf.
Following the court ruling, Zardari imposed federal rule and
stopped the regional assembly from holding a session in Punjab, where
Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is in power, apparently
in a bid to block PML-N from choosing a new chief minister.
Provincial legislators from Sharif's party gathered outside the
Punjab Assembly in the eastern city of Lahore on Thursday, but a
battery of police did not allow them to enter the building that was
also locked to prevent holding a session.
'Locking the lawmakers out of the house is a shameful act,' Punjab
Assembly Speaker Rana Mohammad Iqbal told reporters, as scores of
lawmaker's chanted slogans.
Iqbal later started a noisy 'session' on the stairs leading to the
building entrance, claiming that holding a meeting was their
constitutional right that cannot be taken away through any law.
Provincial Minister Rana Sanaullah said riot police deployed
outside the barricaded assembly building arrested at least a dozen
demonstrators.
Anti-government rallies were also held in other cities of Punjab
in which protestors lambasted Zardari and denounced the court
decision. They burnt tyres and tore off banners carrying pictures of
Zardari and other leaders of his Pakistan People's Party.
A minor clash between the charged political activists and the law
enforcers was reported in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, which
adjoins the capital city Islamabad.
The PML-N has given a call for countrywide protests against
Sharif's disqualification because of his conviction on several
charges, including plane hijacking, after the then army chief
Musharraf toppled his government in a military coup in 1999.
Sharif was later pardoned but exiled for more than seven years,
only to return few weeks before the February 2008 polls. His party
emerged as the second largest and forged an alliance with Zardari's
Pakistan People's Party to form a coalition government.
But he had to part ways with Zardari after he refused to reinstate
the independent-minded chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who was
sacked by Musharraf in November 2007 in a bid to avoid
disqualification for a second term in the president's office by the
court.
The brewing political crisis has also set alarm bells ringing for
Western governments as they want Pakistan to focus on the fight
against al-Qaeda and the Taliban who have sanctuaries on vast swathes
of ungoverned land in the north-west.
However, the US government has publicly said that the electoral
ban on Sharif and his brother 'is an issue for Pakistan to deal
with.'
USA
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