ISLAMABAD, Aug 23: Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday emerged as the People’s Party’s candidate for the presidential election next month amid ominous signs of a break-up of the four-party ruling coalition after the Pakistan Muslim League-N declined to offer unconditional support for the PPP move.

“Mr Asif Zardari has accepted to contest the election for the office of president of Pakistan on the formal request of the Pakistan People’s Party. He is now the party’s (official) candidate for the Sept 6 election,” the party’s deputy secretary-general and Leader of the House in the Senate, Raza Rabbani, announced at a press conference here.

He was flanked by federal Information Minister Sherry Rehman, Labour Minister Syed Khurshid Shah and Dr Israr Shah, a member of the party’s central executive committee.

The PPP decision apparently follows a series of intra-party meetings and deliberations with other political blocs, after which the party has concluded that even if the PML-N did not support Mr Zardari’s candidature, and despite PML-Q’s decision to nominate Mushahid Hussain as its candidate, he can secure enough votes to become the country’s next president.

Although the numbers are stacked in favour of PPP, pundits consider the contest as wide open.

Mr Zardari gained fame only after marrying the PPP chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, who was slain in December 2007, but was embroiled in controversies after corruption charges were levelled at him during two successive PPP tenures in government. After spending eight years in jail without being convicted, Mr Zardari has emerged as the man holding the party’s leash in the Feb 2008 elections.

Mr Rabbani, who had earlier flown to Raiwind with a party delegation to inform PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif about the PPP decision, admitted that so far Mr Sharif had not made up his mind to offer unqualified support.

“They (PML-N leaders) will discuss the matter within their party and inform us (about their decision) by Monday or Tuesday,” Mr Rabbani said when he was asked if Mr Sharif had agreed to support Mr Zardari’s candidature.

According to Siddiqul Farooque, the PML-N’s spokesman, the party would hold a meeting of its central working committee at the Punjab House, Islamabad, on Monday evening to make a final decision and devise its strategy.

Earlier, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif linked the party’s support for Mr Zardari’s candidature to the restoration of the judiciary by Monday and also called upon the government to repeal the 17th Amendment before the presidential elections. The conditions are unlikely to fulfilled, putting the future of the coalition at stake within a week after the ouster of president Pervez Musharraf.

Both the parties have signed the Charter of Democracy (CoD), in which they had committed themselves to doing away with Article 58-2(b) — which empowers the president to dissolve the National Assembly.

In reply to a question, Mr Rabbani hinted that Mr Zardari would assume powers under Article 58-2(b). He just said the PPP was committed to the charter, signed by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif two years ago.

Mr Rabbani also evaded answering a question about who would run the party affairs if Mr Zardari became the president, saying that the PPP was a democratic party.

Although Mr Sharif had announced that his party was not interested in nominating its own candidate for the presidential election, sources said the party might covertly back an independent candidate, if the judges were not restored by the Monday deadline.

Without giving any timeframe for the restoration of the judiciary, Mr Rabbani insisted that “the judges will be reinstated at all cost” but the issue was not a simple one. “It is a complicated legal and constitutional issue”.

Sources in the party told Dawn correspondent that the party had clearly conveyed to the PML-N that the judges were not going to be reinstated any time soon.

Dismissing reports that the ruling coalition was falling apart, he said: “In the past too, the media ran many reports about the possible collapse of the ruling coalition, but these reports proved wrong. I hope that the ruling coalition will remain intact.”

Mr Rabbani also refused to comment on the statement of JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman according to which he said that Mr Zardari had told the JUI-F chief that the forces people who played a part in the ouster of President Musharraf did not want to reinstate the judges, including deposed chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM has already declared its support for Mr Zardari’s candidature.