PML-N, PPP alliance intact: Sharif

Lahore, May 24 : Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif has said that they would maintain alliance with Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and enable the government to complete its term. Seat adjustments between the PML-N and PPP had been finalised for the upcoming by-elections, Sharif said.

Anti-democratic forces are pumping out propaganda against the newly elected government to mount pressure and the country's crisis-fraught situation is a result of the previous government's unsuccessful policies, he added. "The Presidency is hatching conspiracies to pull down the coalition government," Sharif said, adding that there was something familiar and ominous about the Presidency expressing reservations about the coalition government even though it had only come into being recently.

Sharif said that he had been conveying to Asif Zardari, PPP Co-chairman that they had been granted a golden chance to curtail presidential powers and should take it. He also said that parliament would remain powerless while the president enjoyed the powers conferred on him under Article 58 (2b) and other powers 'grabbed' unconstitutionally.

Sharif also said that PML-N would ensure the restoration of the judiciary. "For us, Iftikhar Chaudhry is the Chief Justice of Pakistan," Sharif said. Chaudhry has become the symbol for an independent judiciary and without his reinstatement, an independent judiciary would remain elusive, he said.

ANI