Former Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif has pulled his party out of the ruling coalition, amid bitter partisan bickering with the coalition’s biggest party over Pakistan’s next president and the reinstatement of a number of sacked judges.

Sharif has accused the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the party of the slain leader Benazir Bhutto, of breaking promises made when he agreed to join the governing coalition. "We therefore feel that these repeated defaults and violations have forced us to withdraw our support from the ruling coalition and sit on the opposition benches," he told a news conference in Islamabad.

According to FRANCE 24 correspondent Matthieu Mabin, Sharif’s decision “comes as no surprise, because he had always threatened to break away from the ruling coalition if he did not obtain the reinstatement of the judges.” President Musharraf, whose resignation has increased tensions within the coalition, fired the judges last year.

Sharif has pulled out his ministers of cabinet, further rocking the Pakistani government after wave of bomb attacks against the Pakistani military.

However, the government is not expected to collapse following Sharif’s decision, said FRANCE 24’s Nadeem Sarwar in Islamabad, because Bhutto's party should be able to gather enough support to govern.

Wrangling over the presidency and deposed judges

The Bhutto’s party is reluctant to restore the sacked judges partly because of concern that the deposed chief justice, if reinstated, might take up challenges to an amnesty Musharraf’s government granted to Bhutto's widower and political successor Asif Ali Zardari. Zardari, the PPP’s freshly announced candidate to succeed Musharraf as president, had faced corruption charges before his return to Pakistan last year.

“We made a commitment to the people of Pakistan to restore the judiciary and the sacked judges and this was one the main agreements to form the coalition,” Sharif said in an interview with FRANCE 24 on Friday. “If we’re forced to quit we will simply become the opposition in the parliament; we will do nothing to destabilise the current government,” he assured.

The choice of a candidate for the upcoming Sept. 6 election has proved to be another bone of contention within the coalition. The PPP announced Zardari as the party’s candidate on Saturday. But according to Sharif, this violated an earlier agreement with the PPP for a non-partisan candidate if the presidency retained certain powers, including the power to dismiss parliament.

On Monday Sharif also announced that his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), had decided to put up its own candidate against Zardari: retired Supreme Court chief justice Saeed uz Zaman Siddiqui.

Expressing disappointment over Sharif's withdrawal, Zardari said late on Monday: "We are sad over Nawaz Sharif's decision. We want to move together and solve the problems facing the nation. We will request Nawaz Sharif to return to the government."

Zardari said there were some "obstacles" in the process of restoring the judges but reiterated that the PPP stood by its original commitment that all deposed judges would be reinstated.

Hostilities kill 700 in Bajaur

The timing of Sharif’s decision could not be worse. The Pakistani Taliban have decided to step up attacks against the Pakistani authorities. Hostilities have already claimed 1,200 lives over the last year.

The United States, Pakistan’s main ally, is hoping the government – the only Muslim country to own the nuclear bomb - will continue its “fight against terrorism” against al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban in the north west of Pakistan, on the Afghan border, analysts say.

“The United States and Europe focus on the army and on the fight against terrorism. Let’s not forget that the fast military operation against the Islamic militants killed 700 people in the north-west province of Bajaur and forced about 200,000 to leave their homes,” says Mariam Abou Zahab, a professor at the Political Science Institute in Paris.