The collapse of a deal granting Pakistan’s president and other officials freedom from prosecution on graft charges has triggered fresh political turmoil just as the army wages a major battle against Taliban militants.
Some analysts are predicting the development could force Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari from office, a familiar prospect in a country where no civilian leader has served out a full five-year term since the state was founded 62 years ago.
Others dismiss that possibility and blame a sensationalist media, opportunist opposition politicians and elements in the army unhappy with civilian rule for fueling the crisis and distracting the government from more important issues like terrorism, education and health care.
The uproar is a concern for the US, which wants Pakistan to remain focused on fighting insurgents threatening the security of the country and expand the fight to militants attacking Western troops across the border in Afghanistan.
“Pakistan can hardly afford another political crisis at a time when the challenge from Taliban extremists has really increased in recent weeks,” said Ishtiaq Ahmad, professor of international relations at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.
“What you need is relative political stability and an economy that is really marching ahead,” he said.
Speculation over the president’s future escalated after he was forced to abandon an effort to get parliament to approve a decree issued in 2007 by his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf. The agreement granted more than 8,000 government bureaucrats and politicians, including Zardari, immunity from a host of corruption and criminal charges.
The amnesty list was part of a US-backed deal to allow Zardari’s late wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, to return from exile in 2007 and run for office safe in the knowledge she would not be dogged by corruption allegations.
But Bhutto was killed by a suicide bomber shortly after she returned to Pakistan.
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