By NNN-PTI,
Islamabad : Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani believes his government will survive its full term and key ally PML-N will not withdraw support despite serious differences within ruling coalition on the issue of reinstatement of the deposed judges.
Questions are being raised about the future of the two-month-old coalition led by Gilani after talks in London between PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari to work out modalities for reinstating dozens of judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf last year ended in deadlock over the weekend.
The two parties have already missed the self-imposed deadline of April 30 for restoring the judges who were sacked for not endorsing last year’s emergency rule and Sharif has been insisting that they should be reinstated by May 12.
However, Zardari has not committed himself to this fresh deadline or agreed on a plan to reinstate the judges.
Despite the sharp differences, Gilani said he believed the PML-N would not withdraw its ministers from his government even if the May 12 deadline is missed. “He (Sharif) will support the government. Certainly,” Gilani told interviewer Karan Thapar on the programme ‘India Tonight’.
Asked about senior PML-N leader Javed Hashmi’s threat that the party will withdraw from the government if the judges are not restored, he said: “This is (putting) a cart before the horse. Because they haven’t as yet decided what would be the fate…And even if they have to take a decision, then it is at the level of Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari.”
Noting that his government will “certainly” survive, Gilani said: “Actually there was a deadline previously it was (April 30) according to the Murree Declaration (signed by the PPP and PML-N to form a coalition).