The rift in Pakistan’s coalition government widened yesterday after the appointment of a disputed figure to a key post in the administration drew protests from former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
Sharif pulled his party’s ministers from the Cabinet earlier this week after the government failed to meet a pledge to restore judges ousted under Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Asif Ali Zardari, who leads the largest party in the coalition, hopes to persuade Sharif to return soon and stabilize an administration facing huge economic problems as well as pressure from the West to curb Islamic militancy.
But a spokesman for Sharif said yesterday that the appointment of the new governor of Punjab Province had only embittered relations within the coalition.
“We should have been taken into confidence” before the decision on the governorship, spokesman Sadiqul Farooq said. “If further steps are taken unilaterally like this, then of course the coalition gets weaker.”
The government took office six weeks ago on a platform of strong opposition to former army strongman Musharraf, whose political allies were routed in February elections.
RESTORING JUDGES
But its failure to agree on how to restore Supreme Court judges purged by Musharraf in November to halt legal challenges to his continuing in office has cast the country into political uncertainty.
Sharif appears to view the judges as a tool to assail Musharraf, who ousted his government in a 1999 coup.
Zardari, whose assassinated wife, the late prime minister Benazir Bhutto, fought bitterly for power with Sharif in the 1990s, has been more cautious.
He insists that laws must be changed to allow the judges to return and has shied away from openly confronting Musharraf, a stalwart US ally who retains the power to dissolve parliament.
The new governor of Punjab is Salman Taseer, a longtime member of Zardari’s Pakistan People’s party who is also a business and media tycoon.
Taseer was allegedly arrested and beaten by police during Sharif’s first government in the early 1990s after publishing details of alleged corruption in the administration.
Farooq accused Taseer of using his newspapers in the past for “character assassination” against Sharif and said his party was worried that Taseer could try to obstruct the provincial government.
Sharif’s party won most of the seats in Punjab, the country’s biggest and richest province, and Sharif’s brother is expected to take over as its chief minister next month.
Governors perform mainly ceremonial duties but also have the power to dissolve the provincial assembly in an emergency. Zardari’s party was unapologetic.
Spokesman Farhatullah Babar said governors were appointed by the president in consultation with the prime minister, who hails from Zardari’s party.
Babar said his party had “informed” Sharif’s party about the move on Wednesday.
Western officials warn that fresh political turmoil could weaken Pakistan’s efforts against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants operating from Pakistani territory along the Afghan border.
The new government is trying to negotiate peace agreements along the frontier that Washington worries will simply allow militants to focus on mounting attacks in Afghanistan.
Militants have vowed to continue the talks, despite an apparent US missile strike on a border village on Wednesday. The identity of the around one dozen people killed remains unclear.
ECONOMY
Concern that the country’s growing economic problems face neglect has alarmed international investors and pushed the Pakistani rupee to record lows against the US dollar.
Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s on Thursday downgraded Pakistan’s sovereign debt, citing the country’s yawning budget and trade deficits and slowing foreign investment.
“The emergence of a stable, cohesive and effective political environment needed to tackle mounting macroeconomic imbalances doesn’t seem to be at hand,” said Agost Benard, an analyst at Standard and Poor’s.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS