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Islamabad: Pakistanis are shocked by the split of a six-week-old coalition government on which they had pinned hopes for stability and change, and fear another bout of political polarisation and instability.
Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who heads the second biggest party in the coalition, announced on Monday his members, were quitting the cabinet after failing to reach agreement with the party of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on the restoration of judges fired by President Pervez Musharraf.
'Very upset'
"I voted in the hope that something good will happen but I don't see that," said Nighat Anees, a teacher at a school on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad. "I'm very upset, really very upset. Sometimes I think I should leave the country."
The fate of the judges has monopolised the attention of the coalition partners since the election, to the cost, critics say, of action on surging inflation, a slumping currency and stocks and the fight against militancy.
The rupee has fallen more than 10 per cent this year as the brewing political crisis has undermined a currency under pressure from a surging oil import bill and fiscal deficit.
As part of his efforts to secure another term as president, Musharraf fired about 60 judges seen as hostile to him in November, after he imposed a brief state of emergency.
Sharif had made the restoration of the judges his main condition for joining a coalition with Bhutto's party, led by her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, since her assassination in December. But the restoration of the judges is likely to spark a showdown with Musharraf and the two leaders failed to agree on how it should be done.
"Pakistan could ... be going back to a polarisation it has known in the past," the Daily Times said.
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