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Musharraf cancels trip to Beijing

ISLAMABAD: As Pakistan’s ruling coalition announced its intention to impeach President Pervez Musharraf, he showed every sign of fighting back, finally cancelling his trip to Beijing where he was to participate in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

The Foreign Office said Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani would represent Pakistan at the Games opening on Friday.

The retired General Musharraf was to have left for China on Wednesday morning, but first cancelled his trip, then decided to leave on Thursday morning before calling it off altogether as his political opponents came together against him.

Otherwise there was no official word from the Presidency after the announcement by the coalition on Thursday, but Aaj TV reported that he met his senior most legal adviser Sharifuddin Prizada for counsel on his options.

The decision to impeach the President gathered momentum after a meeting of Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan People’s Party leader Asif Ali Zardari earlier this week.

The party leaders first met on Tuesday to decide the fate of the coalition, fractured by the PML(N)’s withdrawal from the Cabinet following the PPP’s turnaround from the Muree Declaration for restoring the judges dismissed by Gen. Musharraf in 2007.

But it appears that Mr. Zardari offered Mr. Sharif the bigger prize of impeaching President Musharraf, with the promise that the restoration of the judiciary would follow. It is not clear why the PPP leader, who had until now spoken of avoiding a confrontation with President Musharraf, suddenly decided to go for it.

Analysts say Mr. Zardari was pushed to the wall by rumours that Gen. Musharraf was about to scrap the present set-up.

Two more days of talks followed. A serious hiccup developed on Wednesday on account of Gen. Musharraf’s move to approve a Law Ministry recommendation for selectively restoring judges by reappointment.

It saw Mr. Sharif pull out of the talks, but with the stakes high for the PML(N) in Punjab province, where it is the leader of the ruling coalition, he returned to the talks late in the night on the condition that the recommendation was withdrawn.

Accordingly, the government did not issue any notification for the restoration of the eight Sindh High Court judges approved by Gen. Musharraf, and the two sides are said to have reached an agreement around 2 a.m. on Thursday, working on a joint declaration all day before announcing it in the evening.

The joint declaration says the judges will be restored as laid down in the Murree Declaration “after the impeachment of President Musharraf.”

Now that the two parties had agreed on how to proceed on the two issues that hobbled the coalition right at the start, he said he had invited the PML(N) to rejoin the Cabinet.

Mr. Sharif, who was also present at Zardari House along with representatives of the Awami National Party and the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islami, the other coalition partners, said his party would make a decision on this issue within “a day or two.”

Although the ruling alliance gave no time-frame for its course of action — Mr. Sharif said the proceedings would begin in "a few days" -- there were unconfirmedreports that there was a requisition for a National Assembly session on August 11.

Fears now abound that Gen. Musharraf may pre-empt the move to oust him by using his powers under Article 58(2) (b) of the Constitution to dissolve parliament. But in that case, the Supreme Court has to approve the dissolution, and fresh elections have to be called within three months. With Mr. Sharif’s popularity really high at the moment, it is a move fraught with even more risk for Gen. Musharraf.

There is also concern that the Pakistan Army may decide to enter the fray to save the day for its former chief. In that eventuality, Pakistan’s latest experiment with democracy could end in martial law. There is even talk of the “Bangladesh model” in which the Army takes over, and installs a caretaker regime to prepare for fresh elections.

But no one really knows which way Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani will go, especially as he has displayed a keenness to distance the force from politics, at least for the time being.

One important question that still has to be answered decisively is whether the coalition partners have the required numbers in Parliament to see an impeachment resolution through. After a minimum of 50 per cent of the members of either house of Parliament – the National Assembly or the Senate – sign a notice to the Speaker informing him of their intention to move a resolution for the impeachment, he must send it to the President within three days. The Speaker then calls a joint sitting of both Houses.

The joint session investigates the charge sheet against the President, who at this stage, has the right of reply.

In order to be passed, the impeachment resolution must be backed by two-thirds of the members in a joint sitting of the two houses.

With 342 members in the National Assembly, and 100 in the Senate, the coalition needs 295 votes for the impeachment.

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