Islamabad: The Pakistani Supreme Court’s ruling about holding elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on May 14 instead of October 8 has been met with full resistance by the Sharif family.
The decision to hold early elections was delivered by a three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial with Justices Ijazul Ahsan and Munib Akhtar which over-ruled the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision on the matter.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called the verdict a “murder of justice” and compared the Supreme Court’s decision with that of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s hanging decades back.
Speaking in the parliament, Sharif said: “Two decisions were made today, murder of Bhutto and murder of justice, which is highly regrettable”. Sharif’s statement is seen as trying to get Pakistan’s other powerful dynastic family of the Bhuttos on his side.
Besides venting his opposition against the Supreme Court ruling in the parliament, Sharif also rallied his team of ministers who rejected the verdict. The cabinet has asked the legal team to explore ways to get the decision overturned.
Even as the Prime Minister is leading the assault against the Supreme Court judges in Pakistani capital Islamabad, his brother Nawaz Sharif — the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), told journalists in London that the decision by the Supreme Court bench against the election commission is unconstitutional.
