ISLAMABAD // Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, was today facing the prospect of being thrown out of office after the fragile coalition government announced plans to impeach him. The move plunged nuclear-armed Pakistan into fresh political turmoil. Mr Musharraf was plotting his response today with advisers and finally cancelled a tentatively planned trip to today's opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing. Pakistan's top military commanders also reportedly met yesterday and the reaction of the army - which was, until recently, led by the president - will now be key. The breakthrough for the coalition - which has been able to agree on little since coming to office four months ago - came after three days of talks between the parties that came to power after elections in February, led by Asif Ali Zardari, of the Pakistan People's Party, and Nawaz Sharif, of the Pakistan Muslim League-N. "We want to make a new Pakistan," said Mr Zardari, sitting with his coalition partners at a press conference in Islamabad. "We have the votes and the political will." However, impeachment will not be easy. It requires a two-thirds majority in parliament, and, while the elections brought to power Mr Musharraf's opponents, the numbers are close. The coalition must prove that the president has subverted the constitution or is guilty of gross misconduct. The bigger immediate concern is Mr Musharraf's ability to dismiss parliament, under a constitutional power that was used three times in the 1990s to sack governments. If the president believes the army supports him, he may be tempted to dismiss the parliament. Impeachment has never been used in Pakistan before and there are fears that it could provoke another military intervention. "This decision was taken in haste. They are playing with fire," said Amin Fahim, an estranged senior member of the PPP. "Every action has a reaction." Earlier this year, Mr Musharraf, whose autobiography is pointedly called In the Line of Fire, warned that "I cannot preside over the downfall of Pakistan". Today, he spent over three hours with his top legal aide, Sharifuddin Pirzada, a veteran lawyer known as "the magician" who has been on hand to advise every dictator in Pakistan for decades. The Pakistan military has indicated that it wishes to stay out of politics following Mr Musharraf's decision to give up the job of army chief in November, when he stubbornly clung to his other role of president. However, it is unclear whether the men in uniform, who have staged multiple coups in Pakistan's turbulent history, will stand aside while a former army chief is humiliated and dragged out of office. Mr Sharif said today that he was confident that "this is not the Pakistan of the 80s and 90s". Mr Zardari said it was the wish of his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in December last year, that, if she were killed, her death would become "a catalyst of change". Mr Sharif's current politics are based on two themes: removing Mr Musharraf and restoring to office the judges the president sacked in November. However, many remain sceptical about Mr Zardari's sincerity about either of those causes. In March, Mr Zardari made another dramatic announcement, similarly sitting alongside Mr Sharif, that he would reinstate the judiciary. After four months in government, those judges have still not been reinstated because the PPP has come up with a series of reasons why it could not yet happen. Still, impeachment is a far more complicated and risky manoeuvre than bringing the judges back. The Pakistan People's Party came to power after months of careful secret negotiations with Mr Musharraf and many believe that it continues to work on the basis of a "deal" that it forged with him. Under that arrangement, dozens of criminal charges against Mr Zardari and Ms Bhutto were dropped. "Asif [Zardari] and Pervez Musharraf are inseparable, for their own self-interest," said Iqbal Haider, a former law minister in Bhutto's government of the 1990s. "Impeachment is a device to distract attention from the restoration of the judges." Mr Zardari was dismissive of questions about his seriousness. "Our services to democracy are well-documented. I need no proof, no documentation from anyone," he said. "Once, there will no longer be a monitor [Musharraf], the voice of the parliament is the demand of the people." There have been rumours that Mr Musharraf was attempting to put together grounds to dismiss the government anyway, so Mr Zardari's U-turn may have been prompted by fears that the president would seek to oust him. By joining hands with Mr Zardari over the impeachment, Mr Sharif has agreed to put the issue of the judges on the back-burner, a tactic that will be criticised by Pakistan's popular lawyers' movement, which has campaigned vigorously for the judiciary. It is Mr Musharraf's actions in November, to dismiss the country's top judges and suspend the constitution for a six-week period, which may form the basis of the impeachment. The procedure is likely to be preceded by a vote of no-confidence in parliament, which the coalition hopes would make the president stand down rather than face impeachment. The coalition said they expected the impeachment process to take no more than a couple of weeks. In the past, Mr Musharraf has enjoyed strong support from Washington, as a major ally in the "war on terror", which has given Pakistan billions of dollars in military aid. However, analysts believe that the United States has cooled towards him. The White House said last night that impeachment was an "internal matter" for Pakistan. @Email:sshah@thenational.ae
Foes push to impeach Musharraf
Pakistan's president could be thrown out of office after the government announced impeachment proceedings.
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