Reuters : Violence hits as Pakistani politicians jockey

Violence hits as Pakistani politicians jockey

By Kamran Haider | August 27, 2008

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Government forces killed about 40 militants in clashes in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday as increasing violence, and political uncertainty deepened by a split in the government drove stocks lower.

Hopes for political stability in nuclear-armed Pakistan after Pervez Musharraf resigned as president last week were dashed when the ruling coalition, led by the party of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, fell apart over a judicial dispute and replacing Musharraf.

The departure of the second biggest party, that of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, ended what analysts said was an unnatural alliance between the two old rival parties and set the scene for a battle over the presidency.

The wrangling has distracted the government's attention from mounting militant violence, critics say, though the government says it is committed to pressing on with the campaign against militancy.

Military officials said on Wednesday that 41 militants were killed in two clashes near the Afghan border.

The first began around midnight when militants attacked a military post in the South Waziristan region and 11 of them were killed, the military said.

Later, 30 militants including some foreigners died in fighting in the northwestern region of Bajaur, also on the Afghan border, a military official said.

"Our troops carried out an operation this morning and we have reports that 30 militants, including some Uzbeks, were killed," said a military official who declined to be identified.

The United States, an ally and important source of aid for Pakistan, says militants on the border provide shelter for insurgents fighting the Afghanistan government.

Drawn out political uncertainty and militant violence have undermined confidence of investors who hoped Musharraf's departure would let the government focus on economic and security problems.

Pakistani stocks fell more than 4 percent to their lowest level in more than two years in intra-day trade on Wednesday.

The benchmark Karachi Stock Exchange index has fallen for six consecutive sessions after a two-day recovery following Musharraf's resignation.

"There is still a lot of uncertainty on the political front. People just want to get out of the market," said Sajid Bhanji, a dealer at Arif Habib Ltd.

DRUMMING UP SUPPORT

As investors sold their stocks, politicians drummed up support for the September 6 presidential election in which members of the country's four provincial assemblies and two-chamber national parliament will vote.

Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party has nominated her widower and political successor, Asif Ali Zardari. Sharif's party has put forth a former Supreme Court judge, Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui.

The main pro-Musharraf party nominated a former government minister and top party official, Mushahid Hussain Sayed.

No party has a simple majority of votes though analysts expect Zardari to be able to gather enough support to win.

Bhutto's party dismissed a news report this week suggesting Zardari, who spent 11 years in prison on various charges but was never convicted, suffered from severe mental problems.

Party spokeswoman Farzana Raja said Zardari had been tortured while in prison and as a result had been under mental stress and had a heart problem.

"But he has never been mentally ill," she said.

"It's a planted story to try to ridicule Mr Zardari, our party and the country."

A spokesman for Sharif's party said if the report of Zardari's mental illness were true, he would be ineligible to run for president.

The main issue that led to the departure of Sharif's party from the coalition was his demand scores of judges Musharraf purged last year be reinstated.

The PPP is reluctant to restore the judges partly because of concern the deposed chief justice might take up challenges to an amnesty granted to Zardari and other party leaders from graft charges last year, analysts say.

But eight of the dismissed judges, all High Court judges from the southern province of Sindh, were re-appointed on Wednesday, the eve of the launch of a nationwide protest campaign by lawyers aiming to get all their colleagues restored.

Analysts say it is doubtful the government will reinstate the top judge whom Musharraf purged, the independent-minded former chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry.

(Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Jerry Norton)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

AFP : Pakistan turmoil deepens after coalition split

Pakistan turmoil deepens after coalition split

August 26, 2008

ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistan's political turmoil deepened Tuesday after the two main parties in the ruling coalition split, weakening the fragile government just a week after president Pervez Musharraf resigned.

The world's only nuclear-armed Islamic nation, already facing a fresh campaign of bombings by a resurgent militant movement, now faces the prospect of a bitter political battle over the choice of Musharraf's successor.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif pulled his party out of the coalition on Monday, saying they were moving to the opposition because of what he said were the broken promises of the other main party's leader, Asif Ali Zardari.

He said Zardari had gone back on a pledge to reinstate dozens of judges sacked last year by Musharraf -- an issue that has been at the centre of a political dispute in Pakistan for the past year.

"We have taken this decision after we failed to find any ray of hope and none of the commitments made to us were fulfilled," Sharif said on Monday. "This situation forced us to withdraw our support."

Zardari, in a televised address late Monday, appealed for Sharif's return to the government.

"We are sad over Nawaz Sharif's decision. We want to move together and solve the problems facing the nation," he said. "We will request Nawaz Sharif to return to the government."

Lawyers meanwhile called for a nationwide protest on Thursday to demand the reinstatement of the judges, who were pushed out as Musharraf purged his opponents in the judiciary last year.

Sharif's PML-N party has now put forward its own candidate to challenge Zardari, widower of another former premier, Benazir Bhutto, on September 6, when lawmakers will select who will be the next president.

Zardari and the PML-N candidate, former judge Saeed uz Zaman Siddiqui, will face off against the party formerly behind Musharraf, which has nominated its secretary general Mushahid Hussain.

Candidates filed their election papers on Tuesday.

Political chaos is nothing new in Pakistan, which has been under military rule -- including under General Musharraf -- for more than half of its existence since being partitioned from India after World War II.

But the months of turmoil that eventually forced Musharraf to resign last week under threat of impeachment, and the new split between Sharif and Zardari, have made Western allies jittery about Pakistan's role in the "war on terror".

The United States, which turned Musharraf into an ally after the September 11 attacks and has supplied the country with tens of billions of dollars in aid since then, played down the importance of the split.

"I don't anticipate it would have any impact on our joint efforts to combat extremism," said US State Department spokesman Robert Wood.

The strategically important country -- which has the second-largest Muslim population in the world -- has seen a resurgence of Taliban and Al-Qaeda militant activity in the lawless tribal areas along the Afghan border.

While critics have long charged that Pakistan's powerful intelligence service actually helps to support the militants, the military is nevertheless also pursuing a tough campaign against Islamist guerrillas.

Clashes in one region alone have left around 500 people dead in the last fortnight, and the Pakistani Taliban have said that the latest wave of suicide bombings will continue until the assault is stopped.

But the government said Monday it had banned the main Taliban militant umbrella group, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, and frozen its bank accounts and assets.

Unknown gunmen opened fire on the car of a US diplomat in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday, but she escaped unhurt, police said.

BBC : Pakistan coalition in major split

Pakistan coalition in major split

August 25, 2008

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has pulled his PML-N party - the country's second biggest - out of the multi-party governing coalition.

He has been in dispute with the country's biggest party, the PPP, on the reinstatement of judges sacked by former President Pervez Musharraf.

The two sides also disagree over who should be the next president.

The move throws Pakistan into further turmoil at a time of economic gloom and growing threats from militants.

The Pakistani rupee closed at a record low on Monday and shares fell a further two per cent.

'Constructive role'

Mr Sharif told journalists in Islamabad that the PPP - led by Benazir Bhutto's widower Asif Zardari - had broken promises, in particular over the issue of the judges. "When written documents are repeatedly flouted, trust cannot remain," he said. "We cannot find a ray of hope."

The PPP fears that if all the judges sacked by Mr Musharraf get their jobs back, they may invalidate an amnesty that paved the way for Mr Zardari and Ms Bhutto to return to the country last year.

That would leave Mr Zardari open to prosecution on long-standing corruption charges.

However, Mr Sharif said his party wanted to play a constructive role in opposition, indicating that he would not try to bring down the government for now.

Uncomfortable

Mr Sharif also said the PML-N was putting forward a 'non-partisan' name forward for the presidential election due on on 6 September, a former Supreme Court chief justice, Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui.

The two party leaders had agreed to reduce the powers of the presidency in a country where the president has in the past dismissed democratically elected governments.

Mr Sharif says as long as the presidency remains a powerful post, a non-partisan candidate acceptable to everyone, rather than Mr Zardari, should have been agreed on.

The BBC's Charles Haviland in Islamabad says the PPP has other parties in coalition and the government will not fall. However, the PPP may find Mr Sharif to be an uncomfortably powerful figure to have in opposition at a time when the country lacks a sense of political direction.

Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif worked together to threaten Mr Musharraf with impeachment which led him to resign last week.

The United States gave huge financial backing to Mr Musharraf during his nine years as president as Pakistan became a front line nation in Washington's self-declared 'war on terror'.

US administration officials are concerned that militants are gaining strength in Pakistan and that the coalition's current policy of negotiating with militants is not working.

Last week a double suicide attack at a munitions attack in the town of Wah in Punjab province left nearly 70 people dead.

The Pakistan Taleban claimed responsibility for what was the heaviest attack on a military installation by a militant group in the country's history.

Dawn : PML-N fields own candidate for president

PML-N fields own candidate for president

August 25, 2008

LAHORE, Aug 25: The Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz announced that former Chief Justice of Pakistan Mr. Justice Saeed uz Zaman Siddiqui was the party’s candidate for the post of President of Pakistan.

A local TV channel said a PML leader Ahsan Iqbal had told the channel about the PML-N candidate for the president’s post.

Dawn : PML-N quits coalition

PML-N quits coalition

August 25, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Aug 25 (AFP): Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif Monday said his party had decided to quit Pakistan's ruling coalition over differences on the restoration of judges sacked by ex-president Pervez Musharraf.

Sharif said his Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) had decided to sit on the opposition benches in parliament.

“We have taken this decision after we failed to find any ray of hope and none of the commitments made to us were fulfilled” by Asif Ali Zardari, co-chairman of coalition partner the Pakistan People's Party, he told a news conference.

PML-N names own party candidate for Pakistan president: Mr. Nawaz Sharif named former chief justice of Pakistan Mr. Justice Saeed uz Zaman Siddiqui as his party's candidate for presidential polls scheduled for eptember 6.