ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday barred main opposition leader and former premier Nawaz Sharif from holding office and contesting elections, sparking political turmoil in the nuclear-armed nation.
The court order also applied to his brother Shahbaz Sharif, leading to the immediate collapse of his government in the central Punjab province, Pakistan’s most populous state and the country’s political heartland. “All petitions have been dismissed by the Supreme Court,” senior lawyer Akram Sheikh told reporters in the capital Islamabad. The highest court in Pakistan upheld a court order last June disqualifying Nawaz Sharif, throwing out an appeal lodged on their behalf by the current civilian government.
Hundreds of furious protesters took to the streets, burning tyres and condemning President Asif Ali Zardari across Pakistan while the country’s stock market, jolted by the verdict, lost five percent in Wednesday trading.
Sharif branded the three-judge bench a kangaroo court and accused Zardari of manipulating him out of politics. “A kangaroo court at the asking of Asif Ali Zardari has given this verdict. We do not accept this. We had already rejected these courts,” he told supporters in his home city of Lahore.
The Sharif brothers, whose Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) is the second biggest party in the country, refuse to recognise any judge appointed by former president Pervez Musharraf under emergency rule declared in November 2007. The PML-N campaigns to reinstate judges sacked by Musharraf. A court in Lahore ruled last June that Nawaz Sharif, ousted by Musharraf in a 1999 coup, was ineligible to stand in a by-election because of criminal convictions.
He was convicted of “hijacking” a Pakistani commercial airliner carrying Musharraf after denying the aircraft landing rights while he was president on 12 October 1999. The plane eventually landed and Musharraf seized power.
Sharif’s brother, who has been acquitted of murder charges, was disqualified on the grounds of defaulting bank loans and ridiculing the judiciary. Shahbaz Sharif left his office as chief minister of Punjab without protocol, driving himself to the family estate in Raiwind near Lahore. It was not immediately clear who would replace him.
His party slammed the decision and hundreds of people held angry protests slamming Zardari, whose assassinated wife Benazir Bhutto was a Sharif rival. Zardari “was conspiring to get Sharif brothers disqualified,” PML-N party spokesman Siddique-ul Farooque told AFP.
“It proves there is no difference between Asif Zardari and Pervez Musharraf and at present we have a martial law in the country without uniform.” An angry mob of some 800 people gathered on the main Mall Road in Lahore, blocking traffic by burning tyres and chanting slogans against Zardari. Witnesses said the crowd, including women supporters, attacked banners of the main ruling Pakistan People’s Party and tore down hoardings carrying pictures of the president, prime minister and the provincial governor.
Similar protests were held in dozens of other cities and towns in southern Sindh province, southwestern Baluchistan and Punjab. Analysts said the nuclear-armed Muslim nation, which is battling Taliban and Al-Qaeda extremists and reeling from attacks that have killed more than 1,600 people in less than two years, could ill afford a showdown.
“The court should have considered the situation. Can the country afford political confrontation at this stage?” said political analyst Shafqat Mahmood. “We badly need national reconciliation. This (judgement) is not good for the country and not good for this region,” said veteran politician and leader of the secular Awami National Party, Asfandyar Wali.
“The Sharif brothers are two top political leaders and the verdict means they can never become member of any legislature,” said top Pakistani jurist S.M. Zafar. “I have never seen such a verdict in my caree
