Islamabad: The political crisis in Pakistan intensified on Monday after the Supreme Court issued a contempt notice to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for not re-opening graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.
The Prime Minister will now have to personally appear before the apex court on January 19.
The day began with speculation over whether the Prime Minister would survive the day as the deadline set by the Supreme Court was expiring and the government was meant to explain why it had not sought revival of criminal proceedings against Zardari in Switzerland.
However, instead of replying to the court notice, Gilani's government chose a clumsy defiance, complete silence.
Facing the real possibility of the Prime Minister losing his job, the ruling party PPP went in to a huddle with its coalition allies.
“All the leadership of the country are standing on one page,” said Interior Minister Rehman Malik.
The opposition, meanwhile, stepped up the offensive, with both Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan using the government's defiance of the Supreme Court to seek an early election.
In the end, advice from coalition allies to scale back the confrontation appeared to work.
Gilani is now expected to apologise in person before the court and the move suggests he will seek re-opening of the old corruption case against Zardari.
The noose appears to be tightening on Zardari in another case – memogate. Key witness Mansoor Ijaz will by January 24 try and nail him as a conspirator against the army.
There's early election in the air and the army in the shadows, both driving the government to seek political support from Parliament via a pro-government resolution, which projects the battle as one between dictatorship and democracy.
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