Islamabad: The Pakistani government is all set for a bruising showdown with opposition leader Nawaz Sharif after he rejected President Asif Ali Zardari's olive branch on seeking a review of a Supreme Court verdict barring him and his brother from contesting elections.
Sharif said on Saturday that a lawyers' stir for reinstating the judges sacked in 2007 would go ahead nonetheless.
"I am declaring here that come what may, the lawyers' long march will continue to Islamabad," he said at a rally in Lahore on Saturday night, even as the government earlier in the day asked the army to remain on standby to prevent the protesters from entering the country's capital.
"The agitation is about restoring the sacked judges and removing the Punjab governor," Sharif added.
In a major climbdown to end the lawyers' stir, the Pakistani government said on Saturday it would appeal against the Supreme Court ruling on the Sharif brothers and also take steps to reinstate the judges then president Pervez Musharraf sacked after declaring an emergency in November 2007.
The decisions were taken at a meeting in Islamabad between President Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Galani, as the government warned the lawyers staging the long march it would not permit them to enter the federal capital.
The PML-N has jumped on to the lawyers' bandwagon to protest the Supreme Court judgement on the Sharif brothers. The verdict led to the fall of Shahbaz Sharif's Punjab government and the imposition of the Governor's Rule in the province.
Nawaz Sharif has accused Zardari of engineering the court verdict to settle political scores.
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