Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Tuesday called for a last-ditch effort to save his government after refusing to accept the resignations of Nawaz Sharif party's Cabinet ministers. Sharif, who heads the second-biggest party in the coalition, announced on Monday his members were quitting the cabinet after failing to reach agreement to reinstate judges dismissed late last year by President Pervez Musharraf. Nine ministers from Sharif's party, including Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, handed in their resignations on Tuesday but Prime Minister Gilani declined to accept them. “Let's make a last-minute effort, so that this issue is somehow resolved,” Gilani told Sharif's aides in comments telecast by state-run Pakistan Television. Gilani wanted to wait for Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, who now leads the PPP, and was due to return to Pakistan from Britain late on Tuesday. Zardari says he is committed to restoring the judges but wants to link it to constitutional changes whereas Sharif wants the judges reinstated without conditions. Sharif's promise that his party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), or PML-N, would still support the government while no longer being part of it, provided little solace for a nation tired of turmoil. Western allies in the campaign against terrorism dread more instability in nuclear-armed Pakistan after the turbulence that began in March last year when Musharraf tried to dismiss the country's top judge, touching off protests. If they are restored, the judges could help Sharif, the prime minister, Musharraf ousted when he seized power in 1999, drive his usurper from power. The rupee has fallen 10 percent this year as the brewing political crisis has undermined a currency under pressure from a surging oil import bill and fiscal deficit. The rupee closed at 67.80/68.50 to the dollar on Tuesday, off Friday's all-time closing low of 69.40/50, thanks in part to stiff warnings against speculation by the central bank. The stock market closed 1.79 percent stronger, still 7.7 percent off its life-high on April 21. Like Musharraf, Zardari is reluctant to see the return of some of the purged judges, particularly former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhary, who accepted legal challenges to an amnesty Musharraf granted Zardari, Bhutto and others against graft cases. - With input from Agencies __
