ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s government will reverse an unpopular fuel price rise, the prime minister said on Thursday, in what appeared to be a concession to the opposition in a bid to ease the latest political crisis in the US ally.
“All the political leadership has agreed that fuel prices should be reversed,” Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told the National Assembly on Thursday. “I announce a restoration of the prices” to the levels they were on Dec. 31.
The rollback of a 9 per cent price rise, which was effective Jan. 1, was one of several demands made of Gilani’s Pakistan People’s Party by the Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N).
“Today, the prime minister bowed to the demand of this parliament, which is a big act and it is about bowing to the difficulties of the people of Pakistan,” said Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, leader of the PML-N in parliament.
Gilani’s government is trying to survive a defection to the opposition of one of its main coalition partners, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), whose stronghold is Karachi.
MQM leader Faisal Subzwari told Reuters that while his party appreciated the decision, it would not rejoin the government.
