By Prensa Latina,
Islamabad : The weak Pakistani political coalition collapsed on Monday when Nawaz Sharif announced the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) withdrawal and submitted the league’s candidacy to presidential elections.
During a press conference, Sharif accused the Pakistan Popular Party (PPP) and its leader Asif Ali Zardari of incompliance with the agreements to restore full democracy in the nation, especially rehabilitating judges removed from office by the former President Pervez Musharraf.
“After much deliberations and taking into consideration recent events, the PML-N decided to withdraw from the ruling political coalition”, said Sharif, and stressed his frustration because the PPP disappointed both him and his party.
The PML-N named Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui candidate to September 6 presidential elections in Parliament as a rival to Zardari and took the formal decision of sitting on the opposition’s side.
The PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babur described this decision as hasty and said the coalition served the interest of the nation.
Sharif, overthrown as prime minister by Musharraf’s coup d’état in 1999, showed the press a copy of the agreement signed by the coalition parties to indict the ex general and rehabilitate the judges he had removed from office.
He said to have met late leader of the PPP and Zardari’s wife Benazir Bhutto during exile and that both reached the agreement of ending the dictatorship and establishing democracy.
Nevertheless, after being named presidential candidate on Saturday Zardari said no political pact is sacred and can be modified.
Such a statement made head of the Jamiaat-E-Ulemai Islam (JUI-F) Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman declare Zardari’s words lead to suspicion and his party finds difficult to support the coalition with the PPP now.