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Bhutto's widower says it's too early for impeachment

Pakistan’s new government is avoiding a showdown with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for now because it lacks the support needed to impeach him, the widower of Benazir Bhutto said.

In an interview with the BBC released on Saturday, Asif Ali Zardari also said he may seek election to parliament in June and said he could become prime minister “if it is needed.”

Zardari took over Bhutto’s party after she was assassinated in December and led it to victory in February elections. It leads a new coalition government that has vowed to trim Musharraf’s powers and revise his US-backed counterterrorism policies.

But Zardari said it would only confront the unpopular former army strongman if it can muster the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to impeach him.

“The parliament and the president have a formal relationship. For the time being, we are not breaking up that status quo. We don’t have that power,” Zardari told the BBC.

“For the sake of the country, we don’t want confrontation. But this doesn’t mean we accept him [Musharraf]. If we get the two-thirds majority we will think about making him accountable,” Zardari said.

Musharraf seized power in a military coup in 1999. His authority has waned since he finally retired as army chief last year and since the rout of his political allies in the parliamentary elections.

The new government plans to strip Musharraf of the power to dissolve parliament.

It has also pledged to reinstate Supreme Court judges purged when Musharraf imposed emergency rule in November to stop legal challenges to him continuing for another five years as president.

Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who leads the second-largest party in the coalition and was ejected from office and exiled in the 1999 coup, is calling loudly for Musharraf to quit.

But Zardari said the government had many other things to do besides “besieging the president.”

Pakistan faces mounting economic problems, including electricity shortages and spiraling inflation. The government is struggling to contain ballooning budget and trade deficits as well as draw up a new strategy to counter Islamic extremism.

Zardari was not a candidate for the voting in February.

Only lawmakers can become prime minister, and Zardari chose low-profile Bhutto loyalist Yousaf Raza Gilani to front the coalition.

But he said that he and his sister would register as candidates for the seat in southern Pakistan where Bhutto had planned to run and where her death prompted officials to postpone elections until June.


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