Pakistan's Ruling Coalition Calls for No-Confidence Vote in Parliament
By Candace Rondeaux
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, August 8, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Aug. 7 -- Pakistan's ruling coalition parties agreed Thursday to impeach President Pervez Musharraf, setting up a major showdown between the former military chief and the newly elected civilian government.
Leaders of the ruling Pakistan People's Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-N faction called for a no-confidence vote in Parliament against Musharraf and said they could begin official impeachment proceedings against him within a few days.
Pakistan People's Party co-chair Asif Ali Zardari said Musharraf's nearly nine-year rule had thrown the country into turmoil. The time had come, he said, to break the six-month-long political deadlock that has paralyzed Pakistan since the civilian-dominated coalition was swept to power in parliamentary elections Feb. 18.
"His policies have weakened the federation and eroded the trust of the nation in national institutions," Zardari said at a news conference held here with Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N faction and a former prime minister. "The coalition believes it has become imperative to move for impeachment."
Internationally, Musharraf has been viewed alternately as a political pariah and a bold statesman in a region that has suffered instability for more than three decades. His profile rose considerably after he allied himself with the United States following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
He has been a key ally in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, providing operational bases and logistical support for the U.S. military and arresting al-Qaeda figures within Pakistan's borders. Yet, doubts have lingered about the sincerity of his loyalty to the U.S. mission. Recently, Pakistan has come under heavy pressure from the Bush administration to rein in Islamist insurgents in areas along the Afghan border, while Pakistan's intelligence agencies have been accused of assisting Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
The ruling coalition has called for members of Pakistan's four provincial assemblies to move for a vote of no confidence on Musharraf's tenure in office. Impeachment proceedings would be separate. A combined two-thirds majority vote in both the National Assembly and Senate would be required to oust him from the presidency.
Should the coalition succeed, the move would be a first in the nation's 61-year history to remove a head of state through this rare parliamentary measure.
In a sign of the seriousness of the crisis, Musharraf canceled a scheduled trip to Beijing for the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. The coalition government announced that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani would fly to Beijing instead.
Musharraf, who stepped down as army chief in November, remained silent Thursday. Pakistan braced for the possibility that the president could move to dissolve Parliament under a controversial amendment adopted during his rule.
The president met with a top constitutional expert, presumably to discuss his options, according to local news reports, and was expected to meet with Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the military chief, and top officers of the army.
Sharif and Zardari announced their decision to oust Musharraf about three months after Sharif pulled his party out of government cabinet positions in protest over Zardari's refusal to immediately reinstate about 60 judges fired by the president last year.
A long-simmering dispute over how to restore the judges threatened to permanently divide the two ruling parties and brought the country to a virtual standstill amid one of the worst economic crises in its history.
Sharif, whose party drew strong support at the polls in part because of its calls to restore the judiciary, held that a simple executive order was sufficient to do so. But Zardari's party insisted on adopting complex constitutional amendments to restore the judiciary. The impasse was apparently broken in several days of marathon meetings between coalition party members.
Speaking together Thursday for the first time in months in Islamabad, Zardari and Sharif said they would push for the restoration of Pakistan's fractured judiciary and, if Musharraf is impeached, bring deposed Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry back to the bench.
Musharraf, 64, came to power in October 1999 after a military coup against Sharif. His political fortunes shifted last year after he suspended Chaudhry from the bench. The move prompted a political conflagration that led to dozens of clashes. Musharraf lost further political capital after he ordered a raid on the historic Red Mosque in Islamabad, where fighters had holed up. More than 100 people died in the ensuing battle.
New challenges to Musharraf's rule mounted in November after he declared a state of emergency and placed Chaudhry and about 60 other judges under house arrest. Public support for Musharraf dropped after the Dec. 27 assassination of former premier and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
Yet, Musharraf still appears to draw significant support from within his Pakistan Muslim League-Q party. Tariq Azim Khan, a leading spokesman for the party, said he is confident that the party will largely back the president in what could be the defining moment of his political career.
"Rightly or wrongly, people may not agree with his politics but all those who voted for him in Parliament should stand behind him," Azim said.
Special correspondent Shaiq Hussain contributed to this report.
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