Fwd: Pakistan Coalition Moves to Impeach Musharraf
Moyez Kamani
From: Ali Janmohamed <ali...@gosonic.ca>
Date: Sat, Aug 9, 2008 at 11:54 AM
Subject: Pakistan Coalition Moves to Impeach Musharraf
To: Ali Janmohamed <ali...@gosonic.ca>
August 8, 2008
Pakistan Coalition Moves to Impeach Musharraf
By JANE PERLEZ
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan —A move by the civilian
leadership on Thursday to impeach President Pervez Musharraf left Pakistan on
the brink of a political crisis that threatened to paralyze the government at a
critical moment when the United States is demanding greater action against
militants based in this country.
The governing coalition set no formal deadline for the
start of impeachment proceedings against Mr. Musharraf, a favored American
ally, leaving open the possibility of a protracted and debilitating political
fight that could take months of haggling to secure the parliamentary votes
needed for impeachment.
It also raised the threat that Mr. Musharraf would try to
dissolve Parliament or that he would look to the army for protection, though
many analysts said the military was unlikely to intervene. "The army
preference is not to get involved and for the constitutional process to be
followed so there is the least amount of disruption to the system," said
Shuja Nawaz, the author of "Crossed Swords" (Oxford University
Press), a book on the Pakistani military. "They would not want to be
drawn into it."
The announcement that the civilian leaders would seek
impeachment, made at a news conference here, was the culmination of months of
wrenching political changes after the assassination of the opposition leader
Benazir Bhutto in December and the decisive victory of her party in elections
in February. Since then, the leaders of the country's two major parties,
Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, have forged a tense governing coalition that
has teetered on collapse.
Mr. Zardari, the head of the Pakistan Peoples Party, and
Mr. Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, have barely been on
speaking terms. For the last several days, they had been closeted in meetings
on how to keep their coalition together.
Mr. Sharif, who was ousted as prime minister by Mr.
Musharraf in a 1999 coup, has pushed Mr. Zardari to join impeachment
proceedings against the president. Mr. Zardari had resisted. But this week he
apparently decided that the one way to keep the coalition functioning was to
undertake a frontal attack on Mr. Musharraf, who is immensely unpopular here
after having led Pakistan as the head of the army for eight years, until the
end of 2007.
On Thursday, the two coalition leaders issued a joint
communiqué saying that their government would "immediately initiate
impeachment proceedings" and that it would "present a charge sheet
against General Musharraf." Mr. Musharraf was described by his allies as
determined to fight back, and met all day on Thursday with his political
backers and his constitutional lawyer, Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada. In an
indication of the gravity of his situation, the president called off his trip
to attend the opening of the Olympic Games.
Many Pakistani officials said they believed that Mr.
Musharraf would seek support from the Bush administration. It has endowed
Pakistan with more than $12 billion of mostly military aid since 9/11 for its
cooperation in combating the insurgency of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, which is
washing over the border into Afghanistan and attacking American troops there.
The effectiveness of that cooperation has been called into
question, most recently by American officials who presented Pakistan with
evidence that its spy agency played a part in the bombing of the Indian Embassy
in Afghanistan in July.
But Mr. Musharraf, a dominant, outspoken and sometimes
cavalier figure, has enjoyed a personal rapport with Mr. Bush, who has leaned
on the president as his principal support here.
Publicly, the State Department called the bid to impeach
Mr. Musharraf an "internal" Pakistani matter. "Our
expectation is that any action will be consistent with the rule of law and the
Pakistani Constitution," said Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department
spokesman. But privately, one administration official said that Mr.
Musharraf's influence within Pakistan had all but evaporated since he
removed his army uniform at the end of last year and since the sweeping defeat
of his party in elections this year.
While Mr. Bush has kept up his relations with Mr.
Musharraf — including regular telephone conversations — the
administration has also been trying to build its relations with the new
Pakistani government.
That effort, the administration official said, has yet to
bear much fruit. The official requested anonymity because he did not want to be
seen commenting publicly on internal Pakistani affairs.
Looking for new political levers, a succession of the
administration's most senior military and intelligence officials have
visited Pakistan in recent months, but they have focused their attention on Mr.
Musharraf's successor as army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
General Kayani has pledged to keep the army out of politics
— a rare promise in Pakistan — and it seemed doubtful that the army
would come to the rescue of a diminished Mr. Musharraf, said Mr. Nawaz, the
author, who is based in Washington but is currently visiting Pakistan, where he
met with senior military officers.
The army under General Kayani wanted to protect its
institutional interests, not one personality, he said.
Others agreed. As president, Mr. Musharraf has the power
under the Constitution to dismiss the Parliament, but in practice he would have
to have the acquiescence of the military, said Senator Tariq Azim Khan, a
former minister of information in the Musharraf government. That support would
probably not be offered, he said.
After the news conference of the two civilian leaders,
Ahsan Iqbal, the spokesman for Mr. Sharif, said the impeachment proceedings
would be completed "in the next couple of weeks." But there was
wide skepticism that things would proceed so neatly.
A constitutional lawyer, Babar Sattar, who writes
frequently about the need for democracy in Pakistan, said that Mr. Zardari had
already broken a pledge to restore judges dismissed by Mr. Musharraf. There was
little reason to believe he would push ahead with the impeachment. "Why
should we believe him this time?" Mr. Sattar asked.
Impeachment proceedings were indeed uncharted waters: no
Pakistani president has been impeached, politicians said. But there is a clear
process laid out in the Constitution, lawyers said, and it involves two steps.
First, the coalition would need at least half the members
of either the upper or lower house of Parliament to pass an impeachment
resolution, they said.
Then, two-thirds of both houses of Parliament, sitting
together, would have to vote actually to remove Mr. Musharraf from office on
the basis of whatever charges are presented against him.
Coalition officials said they were sure they had 305
votes, 10 more than the 295 required. But others said the 10-vote margin could
probably be reduced by a determined Mr. Musharraf. "That's not a
very comfortable majority," Mr. Sattar said.
The impeachment move comes amid growing public concern
that the four-month-old government has failed to deal with the problems facing
the country, including an economic crisis and the expanding Taliban insurgency.
While an apparent attempt by the coalition to reinvigorate
and bolster itself, the move could just as easily embroil and distract it and
bleed the government of energy, some warned.
A former member of Parliament, Ishaq Khan Khakwani, who
resigned from the Musharraf cabinet last year, suggested that the coalition
government was unleashing a process that could cause significant turmoil.
"An elected government was meant to bring stability;
unfortunately it is destabilizing Pakistan," Mr. Khakwani said.
Still, a poll by the International Republican Institute in
June showed that 85 percent of Pakistanis believed that the president should
resign.
While they have yet to be announced, the charges against
the president are likely to center on the legality of his election to his
current five-year term and his emergency decree last fall.
Mr. Musharraf argues that he was elected democratically
last October, according to the politicians who support him. But the ruling
coalition government disputes the legality of that vote, which was held by the
outgoing Parliament and provincial assemblies dominated by the
president's supporters. Moreover, the coalition says that Mr.
Musharraf's emergency decree last November was unconstitutional, as was his
dismissal of nearly 60 judges, including the chief justice of the Supreme
Court.
One of the politicians who is part of the bloc in
Parliament that seemed up for grabs by both sides said in a telephone interview
on Thursday that he had instructed his colleagues to be in favor of
impeachment.
The politician, Munir Khan Orakzai, who represents the
Kurram district in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas where the Taliban
insurgency has gathered strength, said Mr. Musharraf was to blame for the
problems. "He has made things worse for us," Mr. Orakzai said.
Another member of the national assembly from the tribal
areas, Kamran Khan Wazir from North Waziristan, said Mr. Musharraf should not
wait for impeachment. He should resign first, he said.
Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Washington.
--
Have an excellent day.
Moyez
Home (416) 510-8104
Mobile (647) 836-8767