Pakistan Peoples Party chief Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Nawaz Sharif on Friday failed to break the deadlock over modalities for impeaching Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and reinstating deposed judges.
Musharraf had deposed Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and other judges after he imposed emergency in November 2007. The judges had challenged the constitutional validity of the emergency imposed by him. Musharraf had replaced the judges with a hand-picked judiciary, who also validated his re-election as president.
Pakistan Peoples Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has reportedly decided to move an impeachment motion against President Pervez Musharraf immediately on his return from Saudi Arabia, a move that will force the President to quit rather than be thrown out.Local daily, The News, quoted sources as saying that the decision was conveyed by Zardari to all relevant foreign players, including the Saudis. Zardari had issued instructions to party leaders to start work.
Pakistan's ruling Pakistan People's Party chief Asif Ali Zardari appears set to sweep Saturday's presidential poll and would be expected to tackle problems like rising militancy and economic malaise after his election.Sources said that Zardari expects to poll over 60 per cent of the 700 members in the electoral college, in an election necessitated by former President Pervez Musharraf's resignation on August 18.
'If I am elected president, one of my highest priorities will be to support the prime minister, the National assembly and the senate to amend the constitution to bring back into balance the powers of the presidency and thereby reduce its ability to bring down democratic governance,' Zardari said in an Op-Ed piece in The Washington Post.
Pakistan's controversial anti-corruption watchdog on Monday filed an application in a court seeking resumption of a trial against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz on graft charges, in what would be seen as a politically motivated move.
Pressing for Musharraf's ouster, Mohammad Hasham Babar, the secretary general of the party which is a part of the Pakistan People's Party-led ruling coalition, said the president has destroyed almost all the institutions in the country, including the judiciary, during his dictatorship. He has to go out. We do not want him. Whether he goes out of the country or he is prosecuted in the country, there are only two options," Babar told PTI in Delhi.
Amidst growing divisions in Pakistan's fragile ruling coalition, former premier Nawaz Sharif-led Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's top leaders are meeting on Monday to decide on pulling out of the alliance led by the Pakistan People's Party.
Reacting strongly to reports of Bharatiya Janata Party being spied upon by US National Security Agency, India on Wednesday summoned a top US diplomat in New Delhi to raise the issue, saying it was "totally unacceptable" that an Indian organisation or Indian individual's privacy was transgressed upon.
The meeting of the PPP's central executive committee came a day after the presidency and party snapped all contacts between them in the wake of Zardari's comments in an interview with PTI describing Musharraf as a relic of the past who is standing between the people of Pakistan and democracy. The party's federal ministers and the chief ministers of the PPP-led governments in Balochistan and Sindh provinces also attended the meeting held at Zardari House in Islamabad.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has snapped informal talks with the ruling Pakistan People's Party, following its co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari's stinging comments describing him as a 'relic of the past and an unelected and non-democratic President', Pakistani TV news channels reported on Friday. During his interview with PTI, Zardari described Musharraf as a relic of the past, who was standing between the people of Pakistan and democracy.
Zubaida Jalal, a former minister in Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's cabinet, was defeated in Monday's parliamentary polls, television channels reported.
After decades of delay and inaction, the Hindu minority community in Pakistan will soon have a marriage law as a parliamentary panel has unanimously approved the Hindu Marriage Bill.
Pakistan People's Party parliamentarians on Wednesday backed party chief Asif Ali Zardari for the post of President but he said a decision would be made only after consulting all members of the ruling coalition.
The Pakistan People's Party, heading the coalition, decided to keep the ministerial portfolios, except for Finance, vacant hoping to bring around Nawaz Sharif's party which pulled out its ministers after the deadline for reinstating the judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf expired on Monday.
The crucial talks between the top leaders of Pakistan's ruling coalition ended inconclusively on Friday, with Pakistan People's Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari seeking more time from his ally Pakistan Muslim League-N chief Nawaz Sharif, to consider the modalities for reinstatement of the deposed judges. Sharif said that his party remained committed to the restoration of the judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf, by May 12. Zardari did not talk to the media.
In an effort to consolidate its grip on internal security affairs, the Pakistan government on Tuesday carried out a major revamp of the country's intelligence agencies, transferring the political wing of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence to the civilian Intelligence Bureau. As part of the revamp, carried out by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, the intelligence agencies would no longer be required to send secret reports to President Pervez Musharraf.
Confusion persists over which wing of the Pakistan government is currently controlling the powerful ISI agency, which is at the centre of a controversy after being linked by US intelligence agencies to the suicide bombings on the Indian embassy in Kabul.
Senior leaders of Pakistan's ruling coalition partners the Pakistan's People's Party and the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz -- will resume talks for the fourth day in Dubai on Thursday, about finalising a deal to reinstate deposed judges, while insisting that there is no threat to the government. "We have made progress during seven hours of marathon meetings, but there are still differences on certain legal issues," PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar said.
Even as the talks between leaders of Pakistan's coalition government on restoration of deposed judges remain inconclusive, co-chairman of Pakistan People's Party Asif Ali Zardari has said the reinstatement would be brought about through a constitutional package. The PPP calls for reinstatement of judges through a constitutional package, but the PML-N insists that they should be restored through a parliamentary resolution, as initially agreed by the two parties.
The Pakistan government will restore the Constitution, uphold the supremacy of the Parliament and ensure an independent judiciary, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani said in a television message, on the occasion of the death anniversary of Pakistan People's Party founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, father of the slain former premier Benazir Bhutto. "We would promote the people's rule. We would represent the aspirations of the people and make this country stronger," said Gillani.
'We must make viable peace. This (Kashmir) is a solvable problem that must not take further lives,' Zardari said in a 'special vision statement' read out at a conference organised by Tehelka magazine in London on Friday. Pending a final settlement, 'we agree with the statement of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh supporting an autonomous Kashmir running much of its own affairs', Zardari said.
Pakistan will move forward to resolve the Kashmir issue with India through a peaceful dialogue and the nation's new government will continue confidence-building measures initiated by the previous regime, Pakistan People's Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari said on Friday.
Faced with the Sunday deadline, the Pakistan People's Party on Friday said that it would announce the name of the new prime minister this weekend. However, senior party leaders continued to wrestle with differences on the issue over a month after the parliamentary polls.Differences in the PPP on who should lead the coalition government continued with vice chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim, once a frontrunner for the post, saying he had suggested a formula to Zardari.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday summoned Pakistan's parliament on March 24 to elect the new Prime Minister, though there was still no word from the Pakistan People's Party and its allies on their nominee for the top post.Musharraf received the official communique regarding the convening of the National Assembly to elect the leader of the House from the Prime Minister's Secretariat on Thursday morning.The President signed the summary.
There is no change in India's Pakistan policy after general elections in the neighbouring country, Defence Minister A K Antony said on Saturday. "There was no change in our policy towards Pakistan," he told mediapersons at the Hindustan Aeronautics complex in Nashik.
The distribution of ministries and parliamentary committees was discussed by top leaders of the PPP and PML-N in Islamabad on Thursday, though the final decision on the government is expected to be announced only on March 17, shortly before the first session of the new National Assembly. Sources said the two parties were yet to decide about key ministries like interior, finance, foreign affairs and defence.
The ruling Pakistan People's Party on Friday condemned as 'despicable' the claim by an Indian author -- that its late party chairperson Benazir Bhutto had confided to him -- that she participated in the nuclear black market.In a statement, PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the claim that Bhutto had "made such an acknowledgement to an obscure journalist is a tasteless and cheap exploitation of her tragic assassination".
The PPP and PML-N, in a charter signed two years ago, had committed to setting up a commission to review the Kargil conflict. Musharraf claimed that Sharif, the then prime minister, was aware of the Pakistan army's advances into Kargil. Sharif has denied the charge, and is seeking a probe to fix responsibility for the war.
Reacting to Zardari's comment that the Kashmir issue be set aside for focus on Indo-Pak ties as a whole, Kashmiri separatist leaders asserted that the resolution of the Kashmir was vital for peace in south Asia.
The PPP's presidential candidate had been advised much earlier to move to the prime minister's house but was reluctant to do so. However, after a security breach at his residence, the PPP chief decided to shift residence
"We believe that all the difficulties the country is facing can be resolved with the support of all the political parties," Zardari told journalists after meeting Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman. The PML-N has indicated that it will support the PPP-led government from outside. Zardari has been working to get the backing of all parties, including the Jamiat, for the government and his meeting with Rehman was part of these efforts.
At a luncheon hosted by PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari for newly elected Parliamentarians, leaders of the three parties said they would support each other to form the federal government and to change the establishment to ensure that the military no longer had a role in Pakistan's politics.
Pakistan's Federal Investigation has formed a committee to probe the distribution of Rs 140 million among politicians by the Inter-Services Intelligence for rigging the 1990 general election.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf believes that the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) will part ways because of several insurmountable issues. However, Musharraf's main ally, the PML-Q, holds the opposite view.
Pakistan's two main Opposition parties stepped up efforts on Friday to identify a consensus candidate for Prime Minister and hammer out a power-sharing formula after the former rivals agreed to form a coalition government.
Ending the suspense on government formation in Pakistan, the two main opposition parties on Thursday announced they would form a new ruling coalition, but did not name any prime ministerial candidate.
The Bush administration may fail to save its most trusted friend because the PPP and PML-N are determined to form a coalition and clip all those powers through which a president can dissolve parliament.
Pakistan has decided to ask the new Iranian government to completely finance a $1.8-billion bilateral gas pipeline project due to fears that US sanctions could hit funding for the venture.
Bhutto's planned long march, which will traverse a distance of nearly 300 km, is expected to be the PPP's largest show of strength since her homecoming rally in Karachi on October 18 that was marred by a suicide attack, which killed nearly 140 people and injured hundreds more.
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