LAHORE, Aug 4: PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif warned on Monday that the ruling coalition might not survive if his Tuesday meeting with PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari did not prove to be “decisive and effective”.

“We are trying our best to resolve the issues (of impeachment of the president and reinstatement of judges) with patience while remaining in the alliance. But we are under immense public pressure and if (this effort) fails to yield results, we’ll have to take some decision,” he told a press conference after holding consultations with the party’s central working committee and lawmakers here on Monday.

Unlike his past six meetings with Zardari since Feb 18 polls, this time he has made the meeting’s agenda public apparently to exert pressure on the senior coalition partner.

Mr Sharif said he earnestly desired to keep the alliance intact and would try to persuade Mr Zardari on the issues he had pointed out in a communiqué delivered to the latter in Dubai on July 16.

Sharing the contents of the communiqué with the media, he said that he had not yet received any response from the PPP co-chairperson.

The communiqué, he said, had called for restoration of the judiciary in accordance with the Murree Declaration, impeachment of the president and naming a new person for the presidency in consultation with coalition allies, restoring the original 1973 Constitution as had been decided in the Charter of Democracy, joint decision making on all issues, and making the president act strictly on the prime minister’s advice.

The PML-N leader said he supported the coalition but it should take “decisions in accordance with the Feb 18 mandate, punish the dictator for unconstitutional steps, reinstate the judges and implement the Charter of Democracy, instead of protecting the actions of a dictator”.

He said he would try to make his meeting “as decisive as possible”, but stopped short of giving any clear deadline.

“It will depend on the meeting’s outcome.”

Urging the PPP leader to act before it was too late, he said the problems caused by “Musharraf’s eight-year dictatorship” could only be solved by direct action.

Complaining that the PPP was not taking the PML-N into confidence over important issues, he refused to accept the responsibility for actions taken by the government. “We take responsibility only for measures for which we have been consulted.”

Asked if the PML-N would accept the constitutional package for restoration of the pre-emergency judiciary, Mr Sharif said the option could not be considered because the coalition lacked a two-thirds majority in parliament.

Refusing to accept any ‘minus-one or minus-two’ formula for the reinstatement of judges, he said he wanted to restore the judiciary’s sanctity “through the return of real judges”.

Asked if his party would table any resolution in the National Assembly calling for the judges’ reinstatement or impeachment of the president, he said it would be better if the resolutions were moved jointly.

About the Fata operation, he said any policy on the matter should be formed in parliament.

Commenting on the president’s proposal for an all-party conference, he said it would be more productive if the president vacated his office. He said President Pervez Musharraf had no right to review the government’s performance because the masses had rejected him in the general elections.

Mr Sharif said the president had forced the business community in Karachi to invite him, adding that traders could not have invited on their own a man rejected by the nation.

About Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s US visit, he said the Foreign Office should avoid “extracting” invitations from friendly countries and curb its habit of being more loyal than the king.

Earlier, PML-N leaders remained divided on whether to part ways with the PPP.

Sources said that most of the unelected participants – retired bureaucrats and political cadre – called for quitting the coalition. This group argued that continuation of the coalition would hurt the PML-N’s popularity because the alliance had so far been unable to fulfil the party’s promise for an independent judiciary.

The other group – comprising people with stakes in the present dispensation – was against ending the alliance with the PPP. They contended that the breaking up of the ruling coalition would strengthen President Musharraf and encourage forces bent upon wrapping up the democratic system. They called for setting another deadline of at least a couple of weeks for the PPP to resolve the issues.

The sources said that their argument had swayed the former prime minister and now he was unlikely to turn his Tuesday meeting with the PPP co-chairperson into a make-or-break event.

Also on Monday, German Ambassador Dr Gunter Mullac and Indian High Commissioner Satia Bharat Pal called on Nawaz Sharif. Former finance minister Sartaj Aziz also attended the meeting.