Islamabad - Pakistan's Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a ban
on opposition leader and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif from
contesting elections.
The move cleared the way for a comeback for the two-time
ex-premier in electoral politics. He could become a member of
parliament in a by-election for a seat expected to be vacated by a
legislator from his party in a couple of months.
Justice Tasadaq Hussain, the head of a five-member panel of the
high court, said while reading out a short order that the previous
rulings disqualifying Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif from
elections were 'set aside.'
The panel did not release the reason behind its decision.
A February 25 verdict by the Supreme Court barring the brothers
from contesting parliamentary elections and holding public office
sparked protests in Punjab, the country's most populous province and
a stronghold of the Sharifs' Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
The ruling also made the Sharifs throw their weight behind lawyers
struggling for the reinstatement of top judge Iftikhar Chaudhry, who
was sacked by the former president and Nawaz Sharif's bitter rival
Pervez Musharraf.
As a so-called Long March by tens of thousands of opposition
activists and attorneys moved toward the capital, Islamabad, for a
planned sit-in on March 16, the government announced the
reinstatement of the fired judge to avoid a potentially explosive
showdown.
'I would like to salute the people of Pakistan again because they,
with great effort, fought for the independence of the judiciary,'
Nawaz Sharif told reporters at his residence in Lahore, the capital
of Punjab.
'Justice was bound to happen; ... however, instead of being
triumphant, we are grateful to God,' added Nawaz Sharif, who has been
shown by some recent polls as the most popular leader in the country.
Despite the court ruling, the politician faces a constitutional
bar on his election as prime minister for a third term, but he could
lead his party to a victory in parliamentary elections to be held in
four years and try to bring about the required constitutional
amendments to remove the term limit.
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