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Islamabad: A high court in Pakistan on Monday disqualified former prime minister Nawaz Sharif from running for a seat in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, in the by-elections due this week.
The judgment by a three-judge bench of the Lahore High Court shocked Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim-League (PML-N), which rules Punjab province and is a major partner in the federal ruling coalition led by the Pakistan Peoples Party.
The court allowed Nawaz Sharif's younger brother Shahbaz Sharif to continue as chief minister of Punjab pending a decision by an election tribunal on objections regarding his election to the provincial legislature.
Sharif was barred from running in a general election in February because he had been convicted of the 1999 hijacking of then army chief Pervez Musharraf's plane, an action that triggered the military coup that overthrew him.
The Election Commission had earlier cleared him to contest Thursday's by-elections. The Sharif brothers' candidatures were challenged through two separate petitions.
Nawaz was contesting polls in a National Assembly constituency in Lahore while Shahbaz was elected unopposed to the provincial assembly earlier this month and became chief minister of the province.
The verdict drew scathing criticism from the PML-N, which termed it a "conspiracy and a political decision."
Party officials confirmed that Nawaz Sharif was unlikely to appeal at the Supreme Court against the disqualification judgment.
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