Islamabad - Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari Monday
lifted a more than one-month-long federal rule in eastern province
Punjab in a bid to further ease political tensions that threatened
the stability of the nuclear-armed country early this month.
The official notification for the undoing of the federal rule,
known locally as governor rule, was issued by the government with the
approval of President Asif Ali Zardari.
'The president is pleased to revoke the aforesaid proclamation,'
the notification said. It also said the grounds on which the federal
rule was imposed 'have ceased to exist,' without explaining further.
Zardari imposed the direct rule on February 25 to dismiss the
government of the popular opposition party Pakistan Muslim
League-Nawaz (PMLN) in Punjab after a controversial court ruling
barred the party chief Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif
from elected office.
Punjab is home to 60 per cent of Pakistan's people and
consequently sends the same percentage of law makers to the federal
parliament. Being the richest province, it is considered the
fountain-head of Pakistani political, economic and security
structure.
The imposition of federal rule created political instability and
mass protests by the PMLN, which threw its weight behind a wider
campaign of the influential legal community struggling for the
restoration of the top judge Iftikhar Chaudhry.
Zardari caved in to the demands of lawyers, civil society, rights
activists and opposition early last week as Sharif led a rally of
tens of thousands of people marching from the eastern city of Lahore
towards the capital Islamabad, and reinstated Chaudhry, who was
sacked by the former military strongman Pervez Musharraf.
Zardari, who heads the liberal Pakistan Peoples' Party after the
assassination of his wife and ex-premier Benazir Bhutto, was also
under immense pressure from his Western backers to end the political
stalemate and marshal all energies in the fight against Taliban and
al-Qaeda militants.
The lifting of direct rule, which came as the second conciliatory
measure, will restore the provincial parliament and a government
headed by PMLN. The Punjab's governor, who is a representative of the
centre, has summoned the parliament on Wednesday to elect the leader
of the house.
Pakistani stocks rose by around three per cent amid expectations
of political stability in the country, despite a terrorist attack by
a group of militants on a police training school in the outskirts of
Lahore.
Military commandoes and police elite forces arrested three and
killed four assailants to end the eight-hour siege that left several
recruits and civilians killed and around 100 injured.
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