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Thursday, February 26, 2009
Says president offered Shahbaz ‘business deal’
By Asim Hussain
LAHORE: PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday urged the nation to rise up as he blamed President Asif Zardari for the disqualification verdict passed against him (Nawaz) and Shahbaz Sharif by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The Sharif brothers said President Zardari pulled the strings of the verdict, asking the nation to rise against the unconstitutional step of the president.
Addressing a press conference at his residence, flanked by party leaders including Zulfiqar Khosa and Khwaja Asif, he said: “It is not the judges but President Zardari whose decision has been announced by the unconstitutional Supreme Court which we don’t acknowledge.”
Nawaz also disclosed that at a lunch that Zardari hosted for Shahbaz recently the president offered a ‘business deal’ to the Sharif brothers “under which the Supreme Court will declare both Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif eligible for contesting elections but in return they will have to support the extension to Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar.”
Nawaz said he and Shahbaz kept quiet on the offer made in the presence of a close aide of Zardari, whose name he would not disclose. He said earlier Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar also offered him a similar deal through a confidante that they rejected.
Nawaz said President Zardari was proving worse than Gen Musharraf in victimizing them, adding sooner or later the disqualification verdict would be reversed and the people of Pakistan would call to account all the characters of this nasty episode aimed at keeping them out of the political arena.
He also called into question the National Reconciliation Ordinance under which “a military dictator Gen Musharraf allowed the plunderers of the public wealth to go scot-free.” He said all the plundered wealth that Zardari siphoned off to Swiss banks should have been recovered before corruption cases were withdrawn against him.
To a question, Nawaz said not the PPP but President Zardari was responsible for the apex courtís decision, which was a slap on the face of the mandate given to the PML-N by the people of Punjab. Neither Zardari nor the ‘Dogar court’ had any right to do so against the people of the Punjab, he added.
He said Shahbaz had been running the government in the Punjab as the most successful chief minister despite many hurdles. He said his heart ached to see such a result of a sincere relationship with Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto which began with the Charter of Democracy in London aimed at establishing genuine democracy and rule of law.
Nawaz criticized the “Supreme Court headed by Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and the judges who took oath of loyalty to Gen Musharraf instead of Pakistan.” He said what was at the back of his mind was that even if those judges decided in their favour, he would not contest the next elections. Nawaz said the NRO stood in the way of restoration of independent judiciary.
He said it was the same Supreme Court that decided in only one day to allow a dictator to contest presidential elections in military uniform. Similarly, he added, this court helped Asif Zardari become president without having a BA degree by repealing the eighty-year-old law requiring graduation as minimum qualification for holding elected public office.
But in their eligibility case, Nawaz said, the same court kept the sword hanging on them and let it fall at a time suiting Zardari.
He said the first step of the struggle was to restore the independent judges and every citizen of Pakistan, including children, should join this struggle. If the people stayed home, he warned, it would be tragic for the nation. “It is time people undid the injustices committed against the Constitution and the country, and I’m standing besides the people in this struggle.”
To a question about the next leader of the House in the Punjab Assembly, Shahbaz Sharif said it would be decided after consultation. About the possibility of a coalition with the PML-Q, he said it was premature to say anything on that since the PML-N had the requisite majority to form government.
Nawaz Sharif ruled out the question of PML-N members resigning from parliament, saying “it is not something Zardari has given them in charity but it is the public mandate that they won.” He also ruled out any appeal or review petition against the apex court judgment saying they would not move the ‘fake’ court. He said the people had already rejected the verdict and it would be overruled with the passage of time, much before the next elections. “And if not then people would reject them in the elections through their votes,” he concluded.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
