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August 7, 2008
Musharraf Impeachment

The two coalition government parties in Pakistan, Zardari’s (Bhutto) PPP and Shraif’s PML-N, were not able to find unity over the reinstatement of the constitutional court judges. These were fired by now president Musharraf. If those judges would be reinstated they would have been likely to rule Musharraf out of office. But they would also have picked on Mr. Ten Percent Zardari for corruption.

A variant to get rid of the despised Musharraf was found yesterday. Zardari and Sharif gave an ultimatum to Musharraf, to go in grace or to get impeached. Musharraf canceled his China visit and planed to fight by legal means, i.e. defend himself against impeachment in the parliament.

Today PPP and PML-N announced their decision to go forward:

President Pervez Musharraf will have to face impeachment under Article 47 of the Constitution if he fails to take vote of confidence from the assemblies immediately.

This was announced by Co-chairman Pakistan People’s Party, Asif Ali Zardari at a joint press conference with Pakistan Muslim League-N Chief, Nawaz Sharif, here at Zardari House on Thursday.

I am not sure yet what the legal consequences of a certain loss in a vote of confidence are, but it sure would be a moral delegitimation for Musharraf in his current position.

The impeachment move might be dangerous. Musharraf can dissolve the parliament and call (or not) for new elections. He would need the support of the army for this as such a move would lead to unrest in the streets. In an unlikely variant the army itself might be inclined to do a coup against Musharraf and the elected government.

Pakistan has inflation at over 20%, daily failure of electricity in its biggest cities and bloody unrest in the tribal areas. What it needs most is a stable and united government. With Musharraf gone, there would be at least a chance for such a government to evolve.

Posted by b on August 7, 2008 at 17:37 UTC | Permalink
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What it needs most is a stable and united government. With Musharraf gone, there would be at least a chance for such a government to evolve.

Unlikely to be of any use or happen; look across the border. If supposedly democratic India is in such a shambles with a coalition Gov., it’s not going to happen there. After all, we’re the same people divided by a notional line(whether you want to call the undivided country, India or Pakistan, is moot to me
With the G7 economy in a meltdown, it’s going to drag things down globally. The political instability will speed up capital flight out of Pakistan.
And that logically, will mean looking for an external enemy to blame, which is of course India.
And it doesn’t help their paranoia that India is arming like mad, gets to sidestep the NPT(sort of) and generally behaving like a lout after 3 drinks in a bar.

Posted by: shanks | Aug 8 2008 2:17 utc | 1

A bit on the process (if it happens, Zardari may bend over…)

Impeachment proceedings were indeed uncharted waters: no Pakistani president has been impeached, politicians said. But there is a clear process laid out in the Constitution, lawyers said, and it involves two steps.
First, the coalition would need at least half the members of either the upper or lower house of Parliament to pass an impeachment resolution, they said.
Then, two-thirds of both houses of Parliament, sitting together, would have to vote actually to remove Mr. Musharraf from office on the basis of whatever charges are presented against him.
Coalition officials said they were sure they had 305 votes, 10 more than the 295 required. But others said the 10-vote margin could probably be reduced by a determined Mr. Musharraf. “That’s not a very comfortable majority,” Mr. Sattar said.

Posted by: b | Aug 8 2008 5:34 utc | 2

Musharraf must face impreachment and if he think that ha was done excellent work to improve peoples life as well as makes the Pakistan stronge than why natioan suffer from economical, electricity, inflation problem as well as current senario of borders where our own brothers fight against own Army.
As per my openion Musharraf must be in a Addiala Jail form a some time and after this must be sended over to Govantanamoba to face real human violations.

Posted by: Z.A.Sheikh | Aug 8 2008 10:37 utc | 3

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