Islamabad: In a last-ditch effort to save the six-week old fragile coalition in Pakistan, PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari will meet the top leaders of his party today to find a way out of the deadlock with PML-N over the issue of restoration of deposed judges.

The political crisis gripping the country deepened with nine ministers belonging to PML-N of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif resigning yesterday after the coalition failed to meet a second deadline to reinstate the judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf last year.

PPP said a joint meeting of the party's parliamentarians, senators, legislators from Punjab province and members of the central executive committee and federal council from Punjab will he held in Zardari House here this evening.

Zardari will preside over the meeting to "take stock of the latest political situation in the country," it said.

Sharif has been pressing hard for bringing back the judges, a move that may spell trouble for Musharraf who removed them in November fearing a verdict against his re-election.

Keen on keeping the path for reconciliation open, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, apparently on instructions from the PPP chief, refused to accept the resignations and called for a "last-minute effort" to save the coalition.

"Let's do a last-minute effort so that this issue is somehow resolved," he told Sharif's aides. On his part, Sharif assured Gilani that his party would continue to support the government.
Source : PTI