Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif Saturday said he was ready to accept the widower of slain ex-premier Benazir Bhutto as president if he does away with powers to dissolve parliament. Former president Pervez Musharraf had strengthened his powers through a 17th constitutional amendment, which gave the president the power to dismiss the government and dissolve parliament. Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari has decided to run for president, a senior party official said Saturday. “Mr. Asif (Ali) Zardari has accepted to contest the election for the office of president of Pakistan after the party unanimously drafted him to do so,” Pakistan People's Party deputy secretary general Raza Rabbani told reporters. “I have no objection over Mr. Zardari contesting presidential election, if he removes the 17th amendment,” Sharif told reporters at his residence after meeting the PPP delegation led by Information Minister Sherry Rehman. Zardari has sought the endorsement of Sharif for nomination on the promise that he will push for the restoration of the deposed judges. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is willing to consent, though reluctantly, to Zardari's bid to be the next president only if all the sacked justices, with no exception, are reinstated as they were functioning on Nov 2, 2007. “This is our commitment and pledge to the nation, and we will not agree to anything less than this. We don't accept minus one or minus two formulae,” senior PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told this correspondent. Sharif said he had a firm agreement with Zardari on the restoration of judges sacked by Musharraf and clarified that neither he nor anyone from his party wanted to become president. “The agreement says that next president will be after removing 17th amendment. The PPP will have a right to nominate its own president then,” Sharif said. Sharif said Zardari had also agreed that judges sacked by Musharraf during a state of emergency last year would be restored within 24 hours of his impeachment or resignation and lamented that it had not been honored. “What happened to your promise?” Sharif said, quoting from a famous Indian heart-break movie song from the late 1970s. “It had been agreed that when Musharraf would resign or get impeached, judges were to be reinstated automatically within 24 hours,” Sharif said and added that he had given a new ultimatum to Zardari. – With agencies __
