Pak Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani offers to resign: Report

Jan 16, 2012 |

Islamabad

Tags:

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday offered to resign shortly after the Supreme Court served him a notice for contempt of court for failing to reopen graft cases against the President, according to a media report.

Gilani told a meeting of top leaders of the Pakistan People's Party and its partners in the ruling coalition that he was ready to quit if the step strengthened the government and parliament, ARY news channel quoted its sources as saying.

PPP leader Qamar Zaman Kaira, Religious Affairs Minister Khursheed Shah and Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi of the PML-Q, a key partner in the coalition, were being considered as possible replacements for Gilani in the event of his resignation.

Gilani convened the meeting of the PPP and its allies hours ahead of a crucial session of parliament that will vote on a resolution to shore up the civilian government. President Asif Ali Zardari too joined the meeting.

Other sources told PTI that the PPP's top leadership had discussed the premier's resignation as a possible measure to ease the government's standoff with the judiciary and the military.

The judiciary has been pressuring the government to reopen cases of alleged money laundering against Zardari since December 2009, when it struck down a graft amnesty issued by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

The apex court has also accepted the military's request for ordering a probe into the alleged memo that had sought US help to stave off a possible coup in Pakistan after the killing of Osama bin Laden in May last year.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/119948" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-729ec03f14f32c8e725400cf3d7084b0" value="form-729ec03f14f32c8e725400cf3d7084b0" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="84482518" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>