Pakistan party demands Zardari resignation

[IBRIS]

Pakistan's main opposition has urged President Asif Zardari to resign after the Supreme Court declared an amnesty against corruption charges illegal.

The controversial law granting senior politicians amnesty was brought in by ex-President Pervez Musharraf.

The court's move opens the way to possible prosecution for Mr Zardari's political allies, although he is still protected by presidential immunity.

Mr Zardari faces several pending court cases against him in Pakistan.

Before taking office, he spent years in jail after being convicted on corruption charges he says were politically motivated.

BBC correspondents say that, despite the pressure on government figures to quit, there are no signs that this is likely to happen.

'Playing tricks'

Siddiqul Farooq, spokesman for the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) of former PM Nawaz Sharif, told the AFP news agency that Mr Zardari should resign on "moral grounds".



President Asif Zardari won elections in 2008
"All the cabinet members must immediately tender their resignations," he said.

Another senior PML-N leader, Khawaja Asif, said Mr Zardari should resign "in his own interest" and that of his party.

"It will be good for the system," he told the Associated Press news agency.

Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar told reporters outside the court that the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) would respect the judgement.

However Mr Babar stressed that the president was protected from prosecution.

"No criminal proceedings whatsoever shall be constituted or continued in any court against the president... during the tenure of office," he said.

The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that at least four governing coalition ministers will have cases revived against them.

These include Interior Minister Rehman Malik (PPP), Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar (PPP), Ports and Shipping minister Babar Khan Ghauri (from the MQM party) and another minister, Farooq Sattar (also from the MQM).

Pakistani newspapers have welcomed the Supreme Court's decision to annul the amnesty.

"Zardari: an accused president," a front page headline in The News said.

The law was introduced by Mr Musharraf in order to allow Mr Zardari's late wife, Benazir Bhutto, to return to the country and stand for office, with the aim of a possible power-sharing deal with Mr Musharraf.

She returned to Pakistan from abroad after the so-called National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) was signed into law, but was assassinated soon after.

It has only recently been revealed that more than 8,000 politicians and officials benefited from the legislation.

The Supreme Court has called for all these cases to be re-opened, with hundreds of senior politicians and civilian bureaucrats now facing criminal and corruption charges.

Pakistan is often ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world by anti-graft campaigners.

According to a listing produced by global watchdog Transparency International, it came 40th out of 180 countries surveyed.
BBC News - Pakistan party demands Zardari resignation

 

[IBRIS]

Pakistan's top ministers barred from leaving the country after amnesty dropped

Pakistan’s defence minister was stopped at an airport on Thursday while attempting to embark on an official visit to China, after he and 248 politicians and bureaucrats were barred from leaving the country.

Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, a close aide of President Asif Ali Zardari, had been scheduled to fly to Beijing with Pakistan’s naval chief to take delivery of a warship.

But in a sign of the increasing vulnerability of top politicians, he was blocked from carrying out his role following lifting on Wednesday of a 2007 amnesty granted to senior officials.

Hundreds of cases against politicians and officials will be reopened, the National Accountability Bureau, Pakistan’s top anti-corruption agency, said, including six which threaten to topple Mr Zardari’s presidency.

“Why was I stopped? You’ll have to ask the chief justice of Pakistan Mr Mukhtar said. “It was a very important visit. I was very embarrassed as the Chinese ambassador had come to see me off.”

Rehman Malik, the interior minister, whose own department oversees the exit control list, is also among those barred from leaving the country. But it remained unclear whether Mr Zardari would be prevented from leaving Pakistan.

The country’s president’s position was fragile on Thursday night as he faced calls for his resignation following renewed accusations of corruption.

Khawaja Asif, a senior member of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N party, said: “(Zardari) should quit this office in his own interest as well as in the interest of his party and the system.”

But the president claimed that his enemies were running a politically-motivated campaign against him.

“I’ve never seen the president this buoyant,” Mr Zardari’s spokesman Farhatullah

Babar told The Daily Telegraph.

“We are going to defend ourselves. The president has made it absolutely clear that he will stay.

“Let them chase us out and let the whole world see who is doing the chasing.”

Documents presented before Pakistan's supreme court this week, linked Mr Zardari and his associates to 11 bank accounts in Switzerland containing £36 million.

The allegations centre on a contract awarded in 1994, during Benazir Bhutto's second term as prime minister, to two Swiss companies to inspect Pakistan's imports and exports.

In return for handing the Swiss companies the business, £7 million is alleged to have been paid to Mr Zardari and his associates.

Mr Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party has called a meeting to discuss the ruling on Saturday but the president's spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, insisted he would not resign.

"The PPP has faced many challenges in the past and it will continue to face them in the future," said Mr Babar. "We are not deterred."

Mr Zardari previously spent 11 years in jail in Pakistan without any of the accusations being proven.

Pakistan's top ministers barred from leaving the country after amnesty dropped - Telegraph

 

[AstanoshKhan]

Pakistan's top ministers barred from leaving the country after amnesty dropped

Thanks for the share IBRIS, now thats what I was thinking since yesterday's annoucement that these rascals will definitely try to escape.

Hang em all... they have sucked the blood of my poor Pakistan.

Beghairat sooor kee awlaaad hay saaray haraami, dil to karta hay in saaray haaraamio kee anko main qeeel tonk du.

 

[StingRoy]

If so many people are against these politicians, then how come they get elected again and again?... why do people support them?... why not give a chance to the younger and more educated liberal candidates?...

 

[araz]

Thanks for the share IBRIS, now thats what I was thinking since yesterday's annoucement that these rascals will definitely try to escape.

Hang em all... they have sucked the blood of my poor Pakistan.

Beghairat sooor kee awlaaad hay saaray haraami, dil to karta hay in saaray haaraamio kee anko main qeeel tonk du.

There is no need to use this kind of language on this board. You can express your anger in simple English language.
Araz

 

[KillBill]

If so many people are against these politicians, then how come they get elected again and again?... why do people support them?... why not give a chance to the younger and more educated liberal candidates?...

May be the reason is exactly as that in India.
How do you think so many stupid people get elected each time and rule us?

 

[StingRoy]

May be the reason is exactly as that in India.
How do you think so many stupid people get elected each time and rule us?

I know... but atleast recently there has been a drive from the Congress to get the youth involved in politics... this is the youngest Parliament in history... positive growth I would say... get some professionalism into running the governments... gone are the years of babudom

 

[IBRIS]

Zardari gets party's support; other ministers who lost amnesty to stay

Pakistan’s ruling party leaders insisted Saturday that they supported the president and would not oust other top government officials after the Supreme Court struck down an amnesty shielding them from corruption charges.

The party dismissed talk of any confrontation with the judiciary, but defiant moves by party leaders since Wednesday’s sweeping and popularly hailed court ruling has so deepened the political turmoil in this nuclear-armed US ally that some analysts gave the government only months to survive in its current form.

The escalating tensions threaten to distract Pakistan’s leadership just as Washington is ramping up the pressure on Islamabad to widen its offensives against Islamist militants to include groups that threaten Western forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

The verdict means that thousands of corruption and other cases against politicians, bureaucrats and party workers dating back to the 1990s have, or will soon be, reopened. Many of the accused claim the charges against them are politically motivated.

During a critical meeting of the party leadership Saturday night, party officials told the media that they respected the courts and that accused members were prepared to face any charges.

But they also insisted that no Cabinet minister affected by the loss of the amnesty would be asked to quit _ even to burnish the party image _ and they said they had full confidence in President Asif Ali Zardari, who is constitutionally immune from prosecution in the graft cases against him.

“Mere accusations don’t mean a person is proven guilty and on such a basis talk of resignations is not right,” said Jahangir Badar, secretary-general of the Pakistan People’s Party.

Aside from resisting calls for the ouster of Cabinet ministers, the government has in recent days suspended officials who were carrying out court orders and elevated one party member named in a graft case to law minister. The moves came as anti-corruption courts issued summonses to more than 100 suspects, while the Interior Ministry issued travel bans on some 250.

“It’s not looking good for stability,” said Cyril Almeida, an opinion writer for Dawn, a leading English-language newspaper. He ruled out a military coup _ something Pakistan is prone to _ but said the events have pitted “the political leadership that currently controls the executive against the judiciary.”

Even Zardari’s position is tenuous because his opponents say they’ll now challenge his eligibility to be president in the first place. Zardari has resisted opposition calls that he resign on moral grounds and has long insisted on his innocence.

Among the suspects summoned by anti-corruption courts are Interior Minister Rehman Malik _ a figure seen as close to the U.S. _ and presidential secretary Salman Farooqi, court officials said. Malik and Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar were among the 250 barred from leaving the country following the Supreme Court’s decision.

After immigration officials stopped Mukhtar from boarding a plane to China on Thursday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani criticized the travel ban, suspended the secretary of the interior ministry and ordered an inquiry.

Part of the difficulty of eradicating official corruption in Pakistan is that investigative and prosecutorial bodies are rarely truly independent of the executive branch. Political analyst Rasul Bakhsh Rais noted that ruling party member Babar Awan was named law minister after he was accused in a bribery case _ an accusation he has denied.

Rais gave the government “months” before it has to change, either through a shake-up of its leadership, mid-term elections or in some other fashion. That’s not helpful for the Obama administration, which needs political stability in Pakistan to succeed in neighboring Afghanistan, where violence against U.S. and NATO troops is running at all time highs.

The amnesty was introduced as part of a U.S.-backed deal to allow Zardari’s wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, to return from self-imposed exile in 2007. Bhutto was killed in December of that year, and Zardari took over the party afterward.

Many ordinary Pakistanis and civil rights activists have hailed the court ruling, saying the amnesty provided unfair cover to the privileged elite who control this impoverished country of 175 million. Analysts said the ruling party must be careful in how it deals with the judiciary, which is a far more popular branch of government.

The country’s powerful army, meanwhile, has tense relations with Zardari, and is unlikely to back the civilian leadership. But it’s also busy tackling insurgents on its soil _ even as the U.S. pressures it to do more _ and is unlikely to want to seize the reins of government, analysts said.

“Is a coup a clear and present danger right now? I think not. The army’s got its hands full,” Almeida said.
Zardari gets party's support; other ministers who lost amnesty to stay- Hindustan Times