Pakistan parties move to impeach Musharraf
Say his policies 'eroded the trust' in institutions
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's ruling coalition parties agreed yesterday 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 impeachment proceedings in the next few days.
Pakistan People's Party co-chair Asif Ali Zardari said Musharraf's nearly nine-year rule had thrown the country into turmoil and that the time had come to break the six-month-long political deadlock that has paralyzed Pakistan since the civilian-dominated coalition was swept to power in parliamentary elections on Feb. 18.
"His policies have weakened the federation and eroded the trust of the nation in national institutions," Zardari said at a news conference here with Pakistan Muslim League-N faction leader and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. "The coalition believes it has become imperative to move for impeachment under Article 47 against General Musharraf."
In world circles, Musharraf has been viewed alternately as a political pariah and bold statesman in a region that has suffered instability for more than three decades. His profile rose considerably after he became one of the first Muslim leaders to ally himself with the United States after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
He has been a key ally in the US-led war in Afghanistan, providing operational bases and logistical support for the US military and arresting Al Qaeda figures within Pakistan's borders. Yet doubts have lingered about the sincerity of his loyalty to the US mission. Recently, Pakistan has come under heavy pressure from the Bush administration to rein in Islamist insurgents in its tribal areas along the Afghan border, while Pakistan's powerful intelligence agencies have been accused of assisting Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
The 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 a separate action. 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 in doing that, the move would be a first in the nuclear-armed nation's 61-year history to remove a head of state through this parliamentary maneuver.
In a sign of the seriousness of the crisis, Musharraf canceled at the last minute a scheduled trip to Beijing for the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.
Musharraf, who stepped down as army chief in December, remained silent yesterday, as the country braced for the possibility that he 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 reports, and was expected to meet with General Ashfaq Kiyani, chief of the Pakistani military, and other top officers.
Meanwhile, Imran Khan, a famous cricket player who became a vocal political opposition figure in Pakistan, said yesterday that the country is in danger of descending into chaos.
"This is a critical time in Pakistan's history," Khan told the Boston Globe in a telephone interview from New York. "The way things are going, Pakistan could end up being like Cambodia was during the Vietnam war."
He said the public is growing increasingly disillusioned with Zardari, and predicted that the Pakistan People's Party - the largest political movement in the country - would soon break apart.
But Hassan Abbas, a former aid to Musharraf who is now at Harvard's Belfer Center, said yesterday's decision to impeach Musharraf had likely saved Zardari's precarious coalition government by following through on campaign promises to get rid of Musharraf and restore the judges that Musharraf dismissed.
"The two major challenges to Zardari is that he was trying to work with Musharraf behind the scenes, and he had not restored the judges," Abbas said. "Now that he has decided to do things which are popular, according to the promises, the chances of a split are much less."
Musharraf, 64, came to power in October 1999 after mounting a military coup against Sharif.
His political fortunes shifted dramatically last year after he suspended Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry from the bench. The move prompted a political conflagration that led to dozens of clashes.
New challenges to Musharraf's rule mounted in November after he declared a state of emergency and placed Chaudhry and some 60 other judges under house arrest. Public support for Musharraf plummeted following the Dec. 27 assassination of former prime minister and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
Farah Stockman of the Globe Staff contributed to this report from Washington.
