:rotfl: The final nail in the coffin, everyone abandoning the sinking ship.
** Musharraf disowned by Pakistan’s ruling party**
Pakistan’s ruling party distanced itself from President Pervez Musharraf’s policies yesterday as his popularity ratings plummeted three days ahead of the general election.
Shujaat Hussain, the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), told The Daily Telegraph that he had disagreed with a series of major decisions taken by Mr Musharraf’s government over the past five years.
Mr Hussain, whose party was cobbled together to prop up the Musharraf military regime and which formed a government after elections in 2002, is making a last ditch attempt to woo conservative voters prior to Monday’s poll.
Mr Musharraf, who stepped down as army chief two months ago, is not competing in the vote as he secured his re-election at the end of last year after sacking the judiciary. However the poll is crucial to his political survival as he may face impeachment from a hostile parliament.
Mr Hussain said that he would reverse Mr Musharraf’s US-driven policy by seeking a political solution to a conflict in the tribal area of Waziristan, where the Pakistani army is battling militants linked to the Taliban and al-Qa’eda.
“We believe that politics rather than force will resolve the issue,” he said. “It is the only answer.”
Mr Hussain was careful not to criticise Mr Musharraf directly, saying that he had “done his level best” at a time when President George W Bush had been “very aggressive” in coercing Pakistan to support the US-led war on terror.
He also blamed last year’s massacre when commandos stormed Islamabad’s radical Red Mosque, killing more than one hundred militants and students, including girls, “on a mistake from the administration”.
In order to divest himself of the blame for the assault, which provoked Osama bin Laden to swear vengeance, Mr Hussain met the mosque’s surviving mullah this week.
From their rural stronghold of Gujrat, Mr Hussain has risen to dominate Pakistan’s politics alongside Pervaiz Elahi, who is his first cousin and the party’s candidate for prime minister.
They have drawn strength from their Jat biradri, or caste group. More than a dozen of their close relatives are standing as parliamentary candidates for the PML-Q; and according to Dawn newspaper, members of their clan make up nearly a quarter of the party’s regional candidates in Punjab.
They claim their wealth stems from the family’s textile business but have not been able to escape the perception that they have prospered under the Musharraf regime.
Speaking from inside the family’s large white porticoed folly that lies on the banks of the Chenab river, Mr Hussain modestly conceded that his party had enabled Mr Musharraf to continue as president.
But it is yet to be seen whether the party and Mr Musharraf, who has now lost his main constituency - the army - will be able to survive without each other.
The “Q”, as the party is known, is beset by allegations of poll-rigging and disunity, and has been blamed for food and energy shortages. Rejecting the allegations of electoral fraud, however, Mr Hussain, claimed that it would win an electoral majority.
He added that he would be willing to enter a power-sharing deal with Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto, and her Pakistan’s People’s Party, despite a bloody feud between the two families.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/16/wpakistan116.xml
