World | Pakistan
Musharraf allies dare leaders of main political parties to unseat president
PML-Q chief says former general was elected for five years and will complete full term
- AP
- Published: 00:30 February 29, 2008
- Courting judges’ cause Pakistani lawyers hold a protest rally against President Pervez Musharraf in Karachi yesterday. Musharraf’s allies rallied around him yesterday
- Image Credit: AP
Islamabad: President Pervez Musharraf's allies rallied around him yesterday, challenging the victors in Pakistan's elections to oust him as he prepares to face a hostile parliament.
"He has been elected president for five years. He will remain president for five years," said Pervez Elahi, a close confidant of Musharraf, who has come under increasing pressure from opponents to step down.
Leading the charge against Musharraf - a former army general who cracked down on the opposition, judiciary and media last year - are the parties of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.
The two parties finished first and second in the February 18 parliamentary election. The Pakistan Muslim League-Q, a party loyal to Musharraf, lost heavily.
Elahi, who would have been the PML-Q's prime minister had the party won, said Musharraf would not resign.
New crisis
"There is no such proposal. Neither is he considering it," Elahi told reporters.
Musharraf's stand has raised the prospect of a new political crisis that could spoil Pakistan's return to democracy after eight years of military rule.
The US has continued to back Musharraf because of his sustained support for Washington's war on Taliban and Al Qaida militants operating in rugged parts of Pakistan near the Afghan border.
The government blamed an Al Qaida-linked militant commander for Bhutto's December 27 assassination.
On Wednesday, the parties of Bhutto and Sharif urged Musharraf to quickly convene the National Assembly, the lower house of the country's parliament, so the parties can form a government.
Sharif said the prospective coalition partners have 171 seats out of the 272 in the National Assembly and would soon secure the two-thirds majority needed to change the constitution or impeach Musharraf.
In November, Musharraf declared a state of emergency and purged the Supreme Court before it could rule on the disputed legality of his re-election as president a month earlier.
Pro-Musharraf parties have retained a slender majority in the 100-seat Senate, the upper house. But six senators announced this week they were breaking away from the former ruling bloc.
Musharraf suffered another blow when PML-Q general secretary Mushahid Hussain on Wednesday said he would support a move to strip the president of the power to dissolve Pakistan's parliament. Elahi and party spokesman Tariq Azim said yesterday, however, Hussain was not speaking for the party.
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