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Islamabad: Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered that a special parliamentary election to be held in former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's district be delayed following a ruling that barred him from contesting the poll.
Pakistan's government had filed an urgent appeal Wednesday with the Supreme Court to overturn the ban on Sharif's candidacy and hold off the Thursday election in his district.
Sharif, considered the most popular politician in the country, was barred from running in February elections because of convictions related to the 1999 military coup that ousted him from power.
The elections commission later allowed him to contest by-elections scheduled for Thursday, but the Lahore High Court ruled Monday that he was ineligible to run in those polls.
The ruling highlighted a rift between Sharif's party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, and its larger partner in the governing coalition, the Pakistan People's Party. The
parties have been disputing how to reinstate senior judges fired last year in a purge by President Pervez Musharraf.
Sharif's party has refused to appeal the Lahore court ruling, saying the judiciary - stocked with replacement judges appointed by Musharraf - was illegitimate.
But the People's Party strongly condemned the ruling against Sharif. On Wednesday, party officials appealed to the court to overturn the ruling and delay the vote in Sharif's Lahore district, Deputy Attorney General Raja Abdur Rehman said.
A three-member bench of the court agreed to hear the government's petition - as well as other petitions filed on Sharif's behalf - later Wednesday, Rehman said.
Since Sharif's disqualification, hundreds of protesters in Lahore, Islamabad and the city of Multan have burned effigies and demanded his candidacy be reinstated.
A recent poll found that Sharif, a bitter enemy of Musharraf, was the most popular political leader in the country.
The vote Thursday to choose six parliamentarians will not affect the balance of power in the 342-member National Assembly, where the People's Party controls 123 seats and Sharif's party holds 92 seats.
However, the election, which will also choose 25 members of four different provincial assemblies, could indicate changes in the parties' popularity since the February
elections.
Polling stations are scheduled to open at 8 am (0200 GMT) and close at 5 pm (1100 GMT).
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