PML-N nearing final showdown with govt

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif’s recent tirade against the PPP, particularly President Asif Ali Zardari, will culminate into a mass movement against the government, which the PML-N intends to launch in September to press for snap polls in the country.
“Nawaz’s scathing statements against Zardari and [Prime Minister Yousaf Raza] Gilani in the AJK election campaign are primarily meant to go into preparations for the next general election in Pakistan, which the PML-N wants to have before next year’s planned senate polls,” a source in the PML-N said. He said with the passage of time, the PML-N’s tune and tenor against the government would become bitterer and the party chief would call for mass street movement against the PPP-led alliance by September this year.
The source said per the party’s decision, the PML-N would target the PPP government on two issues, corruption and failed foreign policy. “The government’s disrespect to the judiciary will be the third subject on which it will be hit hard by the PML-N leaders,” he added. He said the exact timing of launching a long march-like movement against the government had not been decided yet. “If the PPP and the PML-Q try to destabilise the Punjab government after the budget, their move will trigger a mass public movement,” he said. The source said Nawaz had recently approved the unanimous decision of the PML-N’s joint parliamentary party to launch a decisive movement against the government.
He said the PML-N top leadership had not yet endorsed the extreme step of resigning from parliament as suggested by some party hawks. PML-N’s firebrand Khawaja Saad Rafique earlier said the PML-N could use the option resigning from assemblies any time. “The PML-N has decided that Nawaz will continue addressing public gatherings across the country and once the scorching summer ends, the party would launch a decisive movement against the government,” said a PML-N leader. He said the PML-N leadership had already taken smaller anti-PPP political entities across the country onboard.
The source added that Nawaz and other PML-N top leaders believed that giving further time to the government would destroy state institutions. Talking to Pakistan Today, PML-N’s central leader Zafar Iqbal Jhagra said if the government failed to mend its ways, the PML-N would be compelled to say yes to the demand of fed-up masses.