ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday pledged to fight back following the annulment of a graft amnesty by the supreme court.

The beleaguered president vowed “to fight back” while chairing a meeting of the PPP’s central executive committee to review the fallout of the apex court’s decision to strike down the National Reconciliation Ordinance.

“They would only lift my dead body from the presidency,” he told party leaders during the meeting, while referring to his opponents. The PPP “reposed full confidence” in Zardari’s leadership and “vowed to rally around him”, a presidential spokesman said.

The party also decided that federal ministers facing graft charges following the scrapping of the NRO by the apex court on Wednesday would defend themselves in court instead of resigning.

Zardari said the PPP “will not be blackmailed into asking its ministers to resign merely on the basis of accusations against them”.

