ISLAMABAD, Feb 26: The PPP-led coalition government seemed facing the worst political crisis of its 11-month life as nationwide protests on Thursday denounced a Supreme Court ruling that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani acknowledged had hurt a nascent democracy.

Violence at some places marred the protests against Wednesday’s ruling that disqualified former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif from holding any elective public office, threatening law and order in the country’s most populous province.

The controversial verdict by a three-judge bench, which meant the dissolution of Shahbaz Sharif’s coalition government in Punjab and led to the imposition of governor’s rule there by President Asif Zardari, plunged the country into a new political turmoil while it was already reeling from a global economic crisis and an insurgency by militants in the northwest.

But most accusing fingers were pointed at the president, who is accused of protecting the so-called “PCO judges” who took oath under a Nov 3, 2007, controversial Provisional Constitution Order issued by former president Pervez Musharraf and who dominate the existing apex court.

President Zardari, who also leads the Pakistan People’s Party as its co-chairman, was the main target of protesters who accused him of dictating the court ruling and of foul play by imposing governor’s rule in the Punjab for two months for possible horse-trading in the provincial assembly where the PML-N is the largest party, instead of allowing it to elect a new chief minister immediately. The charges are rejected by the government.

Differences within coalition

While PML-N, joined also by lawyers, appeared on the warpath, there were signs of differences within the ruling coalition and the PPP over the situation, with Prime Minister Gilani voicing open displeasure at the court ruling, which upheld a Lahore High Court order disqualifying the Sharif brothers on grounds of their controversial convictions under the Musharraf regime.

Reservations about the ruling have also been voiced by other coalition partners, including the ANP and JUI, whose leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman has embarked on a mission to seek a reconciliation between the PPP and PML-N, which had walked out of the coalition in August after the PPP leadership backtracked on a an agreement to restore about 60 judges of the Supreme Court and the four high courts sacked by General Musharraf under his extra-constitutional Nov 3, 2007, emergency proclamation.

“Their departure has weakened democracy,” Mr Gilani said about the dissolution of the Punjab government while talking to reporters in Islamabad on Thursday before going to a PPP CEC meeting called by Mr Zardari to discuss the most serious political challenge since the present government took office in late March last year.

The prime minister even did not appear in full agreement with the president over the imposition of governor’s rule, although he said that “everybody was on board” on the issue and a government press release said on Wednesday the presidential proclamation was issued on his “advice”.

The premier, who won some praise as “a good man” from an otherwise sore Nawaz Sharif, said difference of opinion was essential part of democracy that he often exercised on party platform and added: “Tendering advice for governor’s rule imposition is part of the rules of business”.

He had a damning comment for Attorney General Sardar Mohammad Latif Khan Khosa’s argument on Wednesday against a prayer to the court to refer the Sharif brothers’ case to a larger bench in view of the alleged bias of the present bench, saying: “Certainly he did not consult me.”

The prime minister, who answered reporters’ questions after attending a briefing at the health ministry, did not rule out the possibility of a PML-N appeasement by way of seeking a review of the Supreme Court ruling or extension of General Musharraf’s controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance to erase the convictions of Sharif Brothers as had happened with charges against Mr Zardari, the late Benazir Bhutto and many other politicians dating to 1990s.

But Mr Nawaz Sharif, who addressed a big public rally in Sheikhupura later in the day, seemed to have little hope from Mr Zardari who, he said, had “deceived the nation and did not honour his commitments”, after accusing him on Wednesday of stabbing him in the back.

The PML-N leader had no grudge against the PPP itself and called the party’s assassinated leader Benazir Bhutto as “my sister” who, he said, would not have behaved like her spouse Zardari, if she had been alive and in power after the two traditionally rival parties had signed their famous Charter of Democracy in 2006.

Besides the PPP CEC meeting that ended later at night, the president and the prime minister are likely to continue consultations with their aides on Friday, including a cabinet meeting.