Government reviews ban on Nawaz Sharif

Associated Press
The Observer, Sunday 15 March 2009
Article history
The Pakistani government said it would seek a review of a Supreme Court ruling last month that barred opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and his brother from elected office and triggered a political crisis.

"The federal government will file a review petition in the Supreme Court against the verdict of the Supreme Court," the president's spokesman, Faratullah Barbar, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's government put the army on stand-by ahead of planned opposition protests in the capital, the military said, raising the stakes in a crisis that endangers the country's efforts against Islamist extremism.

Authorities have vowed to prevent lawyers and supporters of Nawaz Sharif from converging on Islamabad for a mass sit-in in front of Parliament tomorrow, arguing it would paralyse the government and present a target for terrorists.