With Musharraf’s fate hanging in balance, the graft cases were “terminated” shortly after the Supreme Court dismissed three petitions challenging Musharraf’s controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) promulgated last October.
PPP leaders — late Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari (now the co-chairman of the single largest party) — had got amnesty for corruption cases dating back to 1980s and 1990s following Musharraf’s order. The cases were terminated by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
The action triggered speculation of a possible understanding between Zardari and Musharraf.
As the new MPs from the planned coalition of PPP, PML-N and ANP met for the first time at a joint meeting in a show of strength against Musharraf, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif upped the ante and appeared to suggest that the President could be impeached when he claimed that the three parties had the required two-thirds majority.
Sharif said the coalition partners would not wait “a single day more” for parliament to be convened.
“Please see the numbers Mr Musharraf. We already have a two-thirds majority (in the National Assembly) and I would like to inform Mr Musharraf we are not prepared to wait for a single more day for the assembly to be convened,” he told the new MPs to a loud applause at a Islamabad hotel. In all 171 members from PPP, PML-N and Awami National Party attended the meeting. The strength of National Assembly is 272.
Addressing the first meeting of MPs from a coalition of the winners from the February 18 parliamentary polls, Sharif questioned why Pakistan’s election commission had still not yet released official results. The results are expected to be announced on March 1.
Sharif wanted the National Assembly to be convened the “very next day” after the results are announced so that the new government could be formed.
“We must fight together, we must defeat dictatorship,” said Sharif, a two-time former premier. The meeting was hosted over a lunch hosted by Zardari. The PPP co-chairman and ANP leader Asfandyar Wali Khan also spoke at the meeting.
Without naming Musharraf, Zardari emphasised the need to change the system. Sharif was more forthright in his comments against Musharraf, saying the military ruler should realise that the three parties and their supporters had a two-thirds majority.
Zardari, whose party has not pressed as strongly as the PML-N for the ouster of Musharraf, said he did not want revenge for his assassinated wife, former premier Benazir Bhutto, but wanted to change the establishment.
“Pakistan stands on the verge of disaster, but it also stands on the verge of opportunity,” Zardari said, adding the results of the February 18 general election had provided a “window of opportunity” to usher in complete democracy.
Sharif said “The nation has given a verdict against dictatorship, the nation has given a verdict from every nook and corner for democracy. And the people who really believe in democracy are sitting here together,” Sharif said.
The meeting also paid rich tributes to Bhutto, saying she had sacrificed her life for the cause of democracy.
Sharif said the occasion reminded him of Bhutto and what it “would have been like if she was still among us”. He added, “We all miss her very badly”.
Meanwhile on the government action, NAB’s deputy prosecutor general Zulfiqar Bhutta said the agency had initially given directions for the termination of cases after Musharraf issued the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) in October last year.
But several anti-corruption courts had refused to stop hearing cases against Bhutto, Zardari and others after the NRO was challenged in the apex court, which also issued a stay on all benefits granted under the law, Bhutta said.
Following today’s order from the Supreme Court, the cases were finally terminated, he said. Earlier,a five-member bench headed by Chief Justice Abdul Hameed dismissed petitions filed by Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed, PML-N leader Shahbaz Sharif and an advocate challenging the constitutional validity of the NRO.
