PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif has asked the nation to get ready for a revolution as the mission of the February 18 elections has not yet been accomplished. Addressing a gathering of his charged party workers at the Aiwan-e-Iqbal on the 10th Yaum-e-Takbeer on May 28, he disclosed that PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari had promised him to oust President Musharraf through an impeachment resolution. Sharif said that the president should not be given a safe passage and he must be tried for high treason. He further said that he could forgive Musharraf for all the wrongs done to him and his family but the nation would never forgive him for the wrongs done to the country and its people. Sharif alluded that Musharraf had compromised on Pakistan's sovereignty alleging that he was taking dictation from Washington. It is for the first time that Mian Nawaz Sharif has unilaterally revealed the contents of his discussions with PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari, and that too in a public gathering. Although Federal Information Minister Sherry Rehman refused to confirm that there had been any agreement between Sharif and Zardari on President Musharraf's impeachment, her deferring attitude evidenced that there had at least been an understanding on this issue between Sharif and Zardari in their meeting in Punjab House in Islamabad on May 27. Apparently, the PML-N chief has made his Wednesday's disclosure to put Zardari on guard so that the latter cannot retreat from his position as he previously did in the matter of restoration of judges by first signing the Bhurban Accord and then gradually drifting away from it. Zardari's argument in support of his pro-Musharraf postures is that he does not want to derail the system. He admits that he is in agreement with Nawaz Sharif on the issues of judges' restoration and President Musharraf's removal but he has reservations on modalities. Zardari did not support restoration of the deposed judges through a parliamentary resolution on the pretext that Chief Justice Dogar could issue a stay-order against such a move which could result in a clash between the executive and the judiciary. Following the same analogy, Zardari would not support Musharraf's impeachment as the president could dismiss the coalition government and dissolve the assemblies exercising his powers under Article 58-2(b). Therefore, Zardari wants to address all such issues through a constitutional package. The news of the "sixty-two point" constitutional package was first released to the media by Federal Law Minister Farooq H Naek on May 19. On that day, Naek refused to disclose the details of the package saying that its disclosure was a prerogative of the party co-chairman. It was expected that the draft constitutional package would be presented in the PPP Central Executive Committee meeting in Islamabad on May 24. However, no draft was presented in the meeting and instead the Law Minister Naek highlighted only a few points of the many proposed amendments, adding further chaos to the confusion. Zardari held meetings with his coalition partners, including Sharif, to discuss the constitutional package without its draft. On demand, he promised that Naek would personally deliver a copy to Nawaz on May 27. The copy of the much-talked about constitutional package has now been provided to the PML-N chief and other coalition partners and is also available to the press. By launching his constitutional package, Zardari has attempted to shelve the judges' issue in the cold storage. He knows that the coalition parities will not have the required strength in the senate to approve the Eighteenth Amendment until at least March 2009. Even if they are able to muster enough support, it will be almost impossible to make President Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif agree on the contents of the constitutional package. Like Zardari announced his constitutional package only to sideline the deposed judges' issue, the PPP co-chairman appears to have made statements on President Pervez Musharraf's impeachment with two objectives. On the one hand, he wanted to save his party from growing unpopularity for being very soft on Musharraf, if not hand in glove with him. On the other hand, he wanted to pave way for President Musharraf's threatened use of Article 58-2(b) to frighten the PML-N and its allies that they must line behind PPP to save the system from collapse. Mian Nawaz Sharif's address of May 28, however, has made it clear that the PML-N is in no mood to accommodate President Musharraf. On the contrary, Sharif seems determined to expose Musharraf's "hidden" friends by making them reveal their real faces. Mian Nawaz Sharif has vowed to board the judicial bus if the judges are not restored by June 10. Aitzaz Ahsan, President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, has also vowed to lead a million-man Long March to Islamabad and besiege the Army House if President Musharraf did not resign by June 12. Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has worked hard to build his apolitical reputation. Therefore, he will not like the marchers to surround the Army House. If at all that does happen, he will rather want this to happen somewhere else. His late night meeting with President Musharraf on May 28 is clearly linked with the political situation obtaining in the country in view of the ensuing Long March. It is quite possible that he would have advised the president to move to the presidency before the proposed Long March. There does not seem to be much substance in the media reports that President Musharraf will resign soon. His past conduct shows that he will not give up until he has exhausted all constitutional and unconstitutional methods. He is often reminded by his opponents of the fate of his predecessors. However, he appears to believe that all of them were booted out from power because they displeased the US administration. Therefore, he has been quite careful not to betray his foreign friends. In fact, the United States Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte applauded President Musharraf's services only a couple of weeks ago when he testified before the Congress's Foreign Affairs Committee that President Musharraf had on a few occasions bypassed even his own national interests. With the United States firmly behind him, the COAS determined to stay neutral, at least publicly, in the president's war against his nemesis and Asif Ali Zardari's actual or perceived fear of President Pervez Musharraf to save the system from collapse; it is unlikely that President Musharraf will resign from his office and that too so soon. It took Zulfikar Ali Bhutto more than a year to force General Ayub Khan to resign. Mian Nawaz Sharif will be lucky if he can achieve this target in half the time. Nevertheless, he has played his cards very cleverly and has given a call for revolution without wasting too much time. Whether or not he will be able to restore the deposed judges, undo the unconstitutional acts of November 3, 2007 and try General Pervez Musharraf and his associates for high treason is anybody's guess. The writer is a practising solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales.