Pakistan

Zardari should go, says PML-N after ban on Sharif brothers

Article published on the 2009-02-26 Latest update 2009-02-26 14:58 TU

Police scuffle with lawmakers of Pakistan Muslim League in Lahore
(Photo: Reuters)

Leaders of Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim Leaguer (PML-N) have called on Prime Minister Asif Ali Zardari to resign and call a new election as thousands protest on a Supreme Court ban on the party's chief and his brother standing for elected office. Thirty of the party's MPs were arrested and later released during angry demonstrations across the country on Thursday.

"The decision by the Supreme Court has been condemned by the people today and they made a large procession," says Senator Saranjam Zaminder, who is a Senior Vice-President of PML-N.

"Zardari should go," he told RFI. "The people of Pakistan, they don’t want these people … and we will not allow him to do these unlawful things."

Zaminder, who calls for a fresh election, warns that the demonstrations could turn violent.

"You never know what happens in the protests, because the police do something wrong and the people become very difficult to control."

Security forces sealed off the Punjab provincial assembly but thousands of people stormed barricades and staged a sit-in outside the Governor's residence in Lahore, the main city in Punjab.

Many shops across the country closed and the govenrment deployed riot police.

Lawyers joined party activists on the protests. Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz had refused to appear before the court because judges appointed by former President Pervez Musharraf are still sitting. The legal profession is still campigning for the reinstatement of the judges whom they replaced.