Pak court suspends ban on Sharif brothers

Supporters of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz pose as they celebrate a court decision outside the Supreme Court building in Islamabad yesterday. Pakistan suspended a court ban on opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and reinstated his party's government in a key province, in a move likely to ease political tensions in the troubled country. Photo: AFP

Pakistan yesterday suspended a court ban on opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and reinstated his party's government in a key province, in a move likely to ease political tensions in the troubled country.
The court decision on February 25 to disqualify Sharif and his brother from contesting elections and holding office sparked mass nationwide protests. Authorities detained hundreds of activists in response.
Under Western pressure to defuse the crisis, the government appealed the ban and agreed to reinstate chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, bowing to a key demand from Sharif -- now the country's most popular politician.
"The supreme court has suspended the February 25 decision," Syed Zafar Ali Shah, a lawyer and leader in Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) party, told reporters outside the court.
The decision allows the two-time former prime minister to contest elections and reinstates his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, as chief minister of the country's most important province, Punjab, while the court reviews the case against them.
Workers in PML-N, the second-largest political party in the country, danced and handed out sweets in jubilation outside the court in the capital Islamabad, shouting "congratulations to the nation."
"Thanks to Allah, our stance was just. Today a new judiciary has come into being in Pakistan. We'll work day and night for the welfare of our people," Shahbaz Sharif told reporters from Lahore, the Punjab capital.
"I'll now be completing my agenda for people's welfare. A provincial cabinet meeting will be convened soon and we will consult our colleagues in the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) about the future course of action," he added.

The government's March 17 promise to put Chaudhry back in office saw Sharif call off a mass protest march on the capital and raised hopes of ending the debilitating political crisis in the nuclear-armed country.
Tuesday's stay is another significant step towards political reconciliation after Sharif walked out of government last August on the judges' issue.
It comes one day after the government lifted central rule in Punjab.
The deeply unpopular President Asif Ali Zardari had put the province, home to more than 60 percent of national lawmakers and Sharif's power base, in the hands of one of his allies on February 25.
"The president respects the courts and court verdicts. The PPP accepts unreservedly the supreme court verdict," presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said in a statement.
"It is hoped that the restoration of government in Punjab will take the process of reconciliation further forward and help in diluting the bitterness generated recently," Babar said.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called Shahbaz Sharif and "congratulated" him on the restoration of his government, an official at the premier's office told AFP.
Analysts also welcomed the suspension.
"The decision is likely to provide a reconciliatory environment and they have to learn to co-exist," Zafarullah Khan, director of the independent, Islamabad-based Centre for Civic Education, told AFP.
Political parties have long battled for control of the huge province, where the PPP had wanted to establish its own government.
A court in Lahore ruled in June that Nawaz Sharif, ousted by then military ruler Pervez 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 prime minister, on October 12, 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.