Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s party will join lawyers in street protests next month to press for the restoration of judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf, a spokesman said yesterday, a move that could further strain the unraveling coalition government.
Leaders of the Pakistan lawyers’ movement said on Saturday they would organize a “long march” for June 10 to demand that the judges be reinstated. No route has been announced.
“We not only will fully support but [will] be part and parcel of this long march,” said party spokesman Sadiqul Farooq, adding that Sharif would personally participate.
Farooq said his party is not trying to destabilize the government, which is only about seven weeks old, but wants to remind it “to fulfill its commitment” to reinstate the judges.
Still, the decision to join the protests could further pressure the party’s larger coalition partner, the Pakistan People’s Party of Asif Ali Zardari, which has seen its popularity dented over the judges issue. The power struggle also comes as Pakistan faces growing economic problems and the continued threat of Islamic militancy.
Last week, Sharif pulled his ministers from the Cabinet over the judges issue.
Then came the controversial appointment of a governor in Punjab Province who is allied with Zardari’s party. Officials from Sharif’s party, which heads Punjab’s government, have said they are concerned that the new governor might interfere with the provincial administration.
Musharraf sacked dozens of independent-minded judges last November and declared a state of emergency to avoid legal challenges to his presidency.
The moves sparked widespread protests and fueled anger among lawyers — already upset over the president’s previous attempt to get rid of the chief justice.
Anti-Musharraf parties swept parliamentary elections in February and vowed to restore the judges. But the parties of Sharif and Zardari could not agree on how to do it.
Sharif’s party has demanded outright reinstatement. Zardari’s party has linked the judges’ restoration with a broader judicial reform package.
There also are complex legal and political questions to resolve, such as what will happen to the judges Musharraf installed after the purge, and the future role of the deposed chief justice.
Officials from Zardari’s party could not immediately be reached for commentyesterday, but a key Zardari aide said on Saturday that lawyers were free to protest.
“We are not a totalitarian government. We will neither stop them nor block coverage if they march,” Information Minister Sherry Rehman said.
In other developments, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has pledged to fight terrorism after a meeting with US President George W. Bush in Eygpt — the highest-level contact between the two governments since Pakistan’s new leaders offered peace talks to Islamist insurgents.
The two leaders met yesterday at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East, a gathering of political and business leaders.
Bush said improving Pakistan’s economy would lessen the allure of extremism. Gilani promised to fight terrorism, calling it “against the humanity.”
Gilani’s government is seeking peace deals with militants who agree to lay down arms. But US officials worry the deals will give extremists time to regroup.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
DISASTROUS VISIT: The talks in Saudi Arabia come after an altercation at the White House that led to the Ukrainian president leaving without signing a minerals deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to arrive in Saudi Arabia yesterday, a day ahead of crucial talks between Ukrainian and US officials on ending the war with Russia. Highly anticipated negotiations today on resolving the three-year conflict would see US and Ukrainian officials meet for the first time since Zelenskiy’s disastrous White House visit last month. Zelenskiy yesterday said that he would meet Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto leader, after which his team “will stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the American team.” At the talks in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, US
RSS