Pakistan Parliament hostile to Musharraf meets

PAKISTAN: Pakistan’s new Parliament met on Monday, setting the stage for a showdown between key US ally President Pervez Musharraf and a coalition government that immediately vowed to take him on.

Slain ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s party will lead the coalition after winning the most seats in elections in February, with the grouping of former premier Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf ousted in 1999, as junior partner.

Former general Musharraf faces a fight for his political survival after his backers were trounced at the polls, with voters showing their anger over growing Islamic militancy and a host of economic problems.

“This is the last day of dictatorship,” Bhutto’s widower Asif Ali Zardari told reporters after meeting Sharif in the parliament building.

“This is our first step. We have conveyed a message to the world community to support democracy which defeats dictatorship,” Zardari added.

Sharif said that the coalition’s strategy was “very clear — our agenda is democracy versus dictatorship. It has to end, it has to be defeated.”

The session began with members of the 342-seat national assembly standing to attention, before a cleric recited passages from the Koran, the Muslim holy book, AFP reporters said.

Neither Zardari nor Sharif actually has seats in the assembly and both had to watch the ceremony from the gallery.

Security was tight for the inauguration of the new parliament, following a bombing targeting foreigners at an Islamabad restaurant on Saturday that left a Turkish woman dead and several western diplomats hurt.

Politicians are also at risk following the assassination of Bhutto in a gun and suicide attack at an election rally on December 27 in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, which adjoins the capital.

An announcement on the country’s new prime minister is expected later this week. Zardari is slated to take the post but will need to contest a by-election to become eligible.

Both Zardari and Sharif avoided questions about the issue.

The parliament is meeting with Musharraf’s popularity at an all-time low, and with his power already weakened by his resignation as army chief in November. His successor has vowed to keep the army out of politics.

The biggest threat facing Musharraf from the Bhutto and Sharif parties is their pledge to restore some 60 judges whom Musharraf sacked in November under a state of emergency.

Monday, AFP