The latest political pressure on President Asif Ali Zardari’s government comes as Pakistan faces a slew of problems, including a violent insurgency and a financial crunch that has left the government relying on an $11 billion loan from the IMF.
Government instability could also hamper US efforts to convince Pakistan to take more action against extremists and Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups hiding in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Pakistanis are also still reeling from this year’s massive floods and persistent electricity shortages.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement, a secular party whose primary base is the southern city of Karachi, said its two cabinet ministers would submit their resignations, which is typically a precursor to joining the opposition.
MQM leaders, however, said they would not shift their 25 seats to the opposition — yet.
Farooq Sattar, one of the MQM Cabinet ministers, said his party was unhappy with the lack of progress in solving Pakistan’s problems and felt Zardari's Pakistani People’s Party did not consult the MQM enough.
Earlier this month, another coalition member, the Jamiat Ulema Islam, said it would join the opposition. If the MQM decides to join the opposition as well, the governing coalition would fall below the 172 seat threshold needed to keep a majority in Parliament.
That could lead to early elections, continuing a long-standing pattern in Pakistan where civilian governments never finish their full terms, either because they are ousted in a military coup or forced out by other means.
During a news conference Tuesday, JUI leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman said Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani should resign or be removed by Zardari because he had exacerbated tensions within the governing coalition.
“If this crisis continues in the presence of this prime minister, then I fear that it might derail democracy,” he said.
The PPP won the most seats in the 2008 elections weeks after its leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. Her husband, Zardari, gained the presidency months later after the ouster of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf from that position.
But Zardari is widely reviled in Pakistan, and the party’s popularity has slipped as problems here have grown.
If the government does fall, the biggest beneficiary could be Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N. The party is more religiously conservative than the PPP or the MQM and it has not been as vocal in opposing the Taleban.
Zardari’s party was lobbying hard Tuesday to prevent the MQM from leaving the coalition.
“We will try to sort out whatever their demands and concerns are,” said Sharmila Farooqi, a PPP spokeswoman.
“We will still have their support. We have a five-year mandate and we still have two more years.”
Meanwhile, three suspected US missile strikes targeting a militant-riddled tribal region near the Afghan border killed 17 people Tuesday, including at least two who were retrieving bodies from the first attack, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
The strikes come in the final days of a year that has seen an unprecedented number of such drone-fired attacks as part of a ramped-up US campaign to take out Al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters seeking sanctuary outside Afghanistan.
The first strike Tuesday hit a house in the Ghulam Khan area of North Waziristan, killing six, the Pakistani intelligence officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The officials did not know the identities of those killed but said they were militants.
About three hours later, as people went to the site to pick up the bodies, more missiles hit the same spot. The intelligence officials said civilians may have been among those killed in the second strike.
Later in the day, nine militants were killed when six missiles hit their vehicles as they traveled in the Ghulam Khan area, the officials said. The dead were believed to be insurgents with the Haqqani network, which is considered one of the top threats to US forces in Afghanistan.
