ISLAMABAD, 29 February 2008 — The Pakistan Muslim League (Q), the party that backs Pervez Musharraf, suffered an embarrassing setback yesterday when it failed to table a motion supporting the president in the Senate for lack of quorum.
PML (Q) Secretary-General Syed Mushahid Hussain had said during an interview with GEO television on Wednesday that his party would demonstrate its strength in the upper house if poll winners Pakistan People’s Party of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif flexed their muscles in the National Assembly (lower house of Parliament). But the leader of the house, Wasim Sajjad of PML (Q), failed to move the pro-Musharraf for lack of quorum.
A senator belonging to PML (Q) but now part of Nilofar Bakhtiar-led Forward Block and former Foreign Minister S.M. Zafar told the house that six senators belonging to the party would not support such a motion because President Musharraf had failed to honor his 2004 commitment to shed his uniform.
Undaunted, Pervez Elahi, a close confidant of Musharraf, defended the president outside the house. “He has been elected president for five years. He will remain president for five years,” he said.
Leading the charge against Musharraf, a former army general who cracked down on the opposition, judiciary and media last year, are the parties of Benazir Bhutto and Sharif. The two parties finished first and second in the Feb. 18 parliamentary election. The Pakistan Muslim League-Q lost heavily.
Elahi, who would have been the PML-Q’s prime minister had the party won, said Musharraf would not resign. “There is no such proposal. Nor 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 Taleban and Al-Qaeda militants operating in rugged parts of Pakistan near the Afghan border. The government blamed an Al-Qaeda-linked militant commander for Benazir’s Dec. 27 assassination.
On Wednesday, the parties of Bhutto and Sharif urged Musharraf to quickly convene the National Assembly 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.
— With input from agencies
