PM still aims to salvage coalition as PML-N quits
Staff Report

ISLAMABAD—Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani called for a last-ditch effort to save his government on Tuesday, after refusing to accept the resignations of cabinet ministers from a coalition partner. Nawaz Sharif, who heads the second-biggest party in the coalition, announced on Monday his members were quitting the cabinet after failing to reach agreement to reinstate judges dismissed late last year by President Pervez Musharraf.
A four-party coalition led by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was formed after an election in February that resulted in defeat for former army chief Musharraf’s allies. The alliance between the PPP and Sharif’s party raised hopes for a stable civilian government in a country ruled by generals for more than half its history since its independence in 1947.
Nine ministers from Sharif’s party, including Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, handed in their resignations on Tuesday but Prime Minister Gilani declined to accept them. “Let’s make a last-minute effort, so that this issue is somehow resolved,” Gilani told Sharif’s aides in comments telecast by state-run Pakistan Television. Gilani wanted to wait for Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, who now leads the PPP, and was due to return to Pakistan from Britain late on Tuesday.
Zardari says he is committed to restoring the judges but wants to link it to constitutional changes whereas as Sharif wants the judges reinstated without conditions. Sharif’s promise that his party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), or PML-N, would still support the government while no longer being part of it, provided little solace for a nation tired of turmoil. “I voted in the hope that something good will happen but I don’t see that,” said Nighat Anis, a teacher at a school on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad. “I’m very upset, really very upset. Sometimes I think I should leave the country.”
Nine federal cabinet members of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Tuesday submitted their resignations to the prime minister. PML-N ministers Khwaja Saad Rafique, Ishaq Dar, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Rana Tanveer Hussain, Tehmina Daulatana, Khwaja Asif, Chaudhry Nisar, Ahsan Iqbal and Sardar Mehtab Khan reached Prime Minister House here and tendered their written resignations to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani.
Muslim League-N leader Mian Nawaz Sharif on Monday announced that his party has decided to quit the federal cabinet after failure of talks for restoration of the deposed judges.
PML-N central leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said Tuesday the party would adhere to its stand for reinstatement of the deposed judges and would not comprise on this. He told a news conference that the PML-N ministers had presented their resignations to Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani and attended a lunch hosted by him for them.
Nisar Ali Khan said the prime minister had refused to accept the resignations and he also had a telephone conversation with PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif. He said whether the resignations were accepted or not the party would not be part of the cabinet. “We will not participate in government decision-making process,” he added.
Reiterating the PML-N Quaid’s statement that the party would sit on the treasury benches and support the government on issue-to-issue basis, he said the PML-N would not support any move to de-stabilize the government. He underscored that PML-N had made a commitment to the nation for reinstatement of the judges and it would stand by it even if it had to “sacrifice” its government in Punjab.