Pakistan’s lower house of parliament was set to convene yesterday as the ruling coalition geared up to impeach President Pervez Musharraf.
Also yesterday, provincial legislatures were to begin tabling resolutions calling on Musharraf to step down or face impeachment.
On Sunday, a spokesman for the president said Musharraf had a “clean track record” and would not resign — despite a rising clamor among the ruling parties and media for the US-backed leader to quit.
“Abdication is the only option,” the Daily Times said in an editorial yesterday.
The coalition announced its impeachment plans last week and said it was preparing a “charge sheet” with allegations against Musharraf including violation of the Constitution, economic mismanagement and political manipulation.
Ahsan Iqbal, spokesman for the second-largest coalition party, said the impeachment motion would be filed after the provincial assemblies have passed their resolutions, which could continue into next week.
No president has been impeached in Pakistan’s turbulent 61-year history. The coalition claims it can get the two-thirds majority required in a joint sitting of both houses in parliament to strip Musharraf of the presidency.
Although Musharraf’s allies dispute that and have urged him to fight impeachment, they have advised the president against using his authority to dismiss parliament and the prime minister.
Former British prime minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday urged so-called middle powers to become a “poisonous shrimp” to carve out strategic economic leverage in a more turbulent global environment. Sunak drew from a metaphor by former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀): A big fish will eat a smaller fish, and the smaller fish will eat the shrimp. Lee made the point a year after the Asian nation’s independence in 1966 that the city-state needed to build up its defense mechanisms — like a shrimp that stings — so it would be left alone by predators. “He was thinking about what Singapore’s
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