World | Pakistan
Amnesty deal fiasco fuels turmoil
Analysts predict President may be ousted after national reconciliation order fails
- AP
- Published: 00:00 November 28, 2009
- Image Credit: EPA
- Soldiers secure the site of a suicide bomb attack on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of militancy-hit North-West Frontier Province, earlier this month. US authorities are concerned that any political turmoil will adversely affect the Pakistani army's fight against militants along the Afghan border.
Islamabad : The collapse of a deal granting Pakistan's president and thousands of other officials freedom from prosecution on graft charges has triggered fresh political turmoil just as the army wages a major battle against Taliban militants near the Afghan border.
Some analysts are predicting the development could force President Asif Ali Zardari out of office, a familiar prospect in a country where no civilian leader has served out a full five-year term since the state was founded 62 years ago.
Others dismiss that possibility and blame a sensationalist media, opportunist opposition politicians and elements in the army unhappy with civilian rule for fuelling the crisis and distracting the government from more important issues like terrorism, education and health care.
The uproar is a concern for the US, which wants Pakistan to remain focused on fighting insurgents threatening the security of the nuclear-armed country and expand the fight to militants attacking Western troops across the border in Afghanistan.
"Pakistan can hardly afford another political crisis at a time when the challenge from Taliban extremists has really increased in recent weeks," said Ishtiaq Ahmad, professor of international relations at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad. "What you need is relative political stability and an economy that is really marching ahead."
Agreement
Speculation over the president's future escalated after he was forced to abandon an effort to get parliament to approve a decree issued in 2007 by his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf. The agreement granted over 8,000 government bureaucrats and politicians, including Zardari and many others from the Pakistan Peoples Party, immunity from a host of corruption and criminal charges.
The amnesty list was part of a US-backed deal to allow Zardari's late wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, to return from exile in 2007 and run for office safe in the knowledge she would not be dogged by corruption allegations. The US and other Western powers supported the bid by Bhutto, who was seen as a secular and pro-Western politician.
But Bhutto, who was forced from her post twice in the 1990s because of alleged corruption, was killed by a suicide bomber shortly after she returned to Pakistan. Zardari took over as co-chairman of her party and was elected president in September 2008 by federal and regional lawmakers.
Over the weekend, the government released the list of some of those who had been protected by the decree, including the interior and defence ministers. Those listed have protested their innocence against what they deem politically motivated charges filed by a military-led investigative body from 1986 to 1999. Many have expressed a willingness to fight in court.
Corruption
"The PPP co-chairman, our ministers and our members have no issues with going forward with these cases," said presidential spokeswoman Farahnaz Ispahani. "Ninety per cent of them were politically motivated cases."
Zardari, still known as "Mr 10 Per Cent" because of unproven corruption allegations when he was a minister in his wife's government, was deemed eligible to run for president because of the amnesty issued by Musharraf. But the Supreme Court declared the decree unconstitutional earlier this year, prompting Zardari to try unsuccessfully to ratify it in parliament.
It was the latest setback for the president, who has seen his approval rating plummet over the last year as Taliban and Al Qaida militants have waged a deadly insurgency from their base in the country's northwest and the economy has foundered.
News Editor's choice
-
Allies quit ruling coalition in Nepal
Political row could trigger months of street protests and violence
-
Qatar blaze 'started at nursery'
Fire killed 19 including 13 children, at Doha’s main shopping centre
-
Jagan jailed over illegal assets
Andhra Pradesh leader accused of corruption, cheating, conspiracy
