So the US has no say in what goes on in Pakistan, as far as the presidency is concerned?
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=14925
By Rauf Klasra
ISLAMABAD: The visiting American senators and officials are discreetly asking political leaders of Pakistan a six million dollar question: if Musharraf resigns or is impeached, who will the next president be?
They are also seriously inquiring about a Minus-two formula, which means getting rid of both the controversial personalities —Musharraf and the deposed CJ Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry.
Sources said before agreeing to the name of a new president, the Americans were said to be busy in making a last ditch effort to persuade the political forces to let the old friend of George Bush stay in the presidency, no matter after clipping all his powers.
Top political sources have confirmed that these days, certain Americans, including some members of think-tanks, were meeting the top political forces in Pakistan in a bid to convince them not to impeach Musharraf as Washington wanted to keep him in the presidency as a “symbol” of their friendship.
Sources said the Americans were trying to negotiate a new deal with the arch enemy of Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif, who was being assured full support in the future for his rise to the post of prime minister in case new elections were held in the country.
Assurances to Nawaz have been given that his papers for the current elections for parliament would not be rejected and in return he only needs to let Musharraf stay in the presidency.
Apparently, after failing to bail out Musharraf, the Americans are now seriously focusing on who might be a better choice for the slot of president of Pakistan.
Sources said the Senate Chairman Muhammadmian Soomro was one of the options if the powers of the president were clipped. In the past, the Americans had been backing Soomro for top slots.
They consider Soomro as a decent and non-controversial political figure.
Even, when Zafarullah Khan Jamali was being removed from the slot of the prime minister, the first choice of Musharraf and the Western powers was Soomro as the new PM. But, somehow a shrewd Shaukat Aziz moulded opinion in his favour at the last moment. But, when the time to appoint the caretaker prime minister came, once again the name of Muhammadmian Soomro was preferred.
The sources said even Benazir Bhutto had agreed to the name of Soomro as caretaker PM, keeping in view his neutral posturing in the last five years.
But, sources said, it might be difficult for Nawaz Sharif to accept Soomro as the new president of Pakistan as he might not like to see someone very close to Musharraf sitting in the presidency.
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By Hamid Mir
ISLAMABAD: A concerted effort is being made by the Bush administration to persuade PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari to meet President Pervez Musharraf and develop a working relationship with him, but Mr Zardari has rejected the pressure saying he would meet Musharraf but ask him to resign.
Talking to this correspondent, Zardari confirmed on Sunday: “Many well-wishers have suggested to me to meet Musharraf in person and discuss the political problems in detail to find some solution.”
He was reluctant to explain the agenda of his proposed meeting with Musharraf but said: “I am hopeful that the outcome of my meeting with Musharraf will not disappoint the people of Pakistan.”
These well-wishers have been emissaries of the US followed by three top US senators currently visiting Pakistan and meeting everyone who matters.
The panic button in the Bush administration was pressed when Zardari criticised Musharraf as ‘a relic of the past’. Two important US senators, who were in Islamabad, met him on Sunday and another, a key member of the Senate intelligence committee, would be seeing him on Monday.
These US senators besides some other officials have been pressing Zardari to stop attacking Musharraf and meet him to reach some understanding on a working relationship. But at least two senators, Carl Levin and Bob Casey, were told by the PPP leader on Sunday in so many words that Musharraf was no longer part of the solution, rather he was the problem.
The US messages in the last couple of days have been focusing on Zardari saying his party should not humiliate Musharraf by impeaching him, as the PPP leader has threatened.
But Zardari has taken the position that Musharraf had been totally rejected by the majority of voters in the February 18 polls and the Bush administration should respect the people’s verdict.
Until a few days ago, Zardari had been working hard to take Musharraf along in the name of national reconciliation. But he faced a lot of criticism and his party was dubbed as Musharraf’s ‘A’ team, rather than his ‘B’ team.
In his interview to PTI and later to Pakistani news channels, Zardari finally opened up against Musharraf saying if he did not resign he may be impeached.
**It is learnt that Zardari has not only rejected the US pressure, but he has also requested the Bush administration to delay the proposed visit of the US Under-Secretary of State John Negroponte to Pakistan this week.
Negroponte visited Pakistan in the last week of March, and Zardari was of the view that another visit may convey a wrong impression to the people that Negroponte was interfering in Pakistani affairs, and trying to rescue Musharraf.
The new Pakistani Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, also played an important role in convincing the Bush administration that a second visit by Negroponte in two months would be counterproductive. **
Haqqani will meet President Bush on June 5 in Washington and will explain the position of his leadership to the US president, who still wants to save Musharraf from public humiliation.
Haqqani, it is learnt, has been told to give a commitment to Mr Bush that Pakistan will keep fighting the war against terror; the objectives of the war will remain the same though the strategy may change. He will also meet with top Democratic Party leaders and inform them that the new leadership in Pakistan cannot work with Musharraf any more.
The impeachment threats by Mr Zardari, according to reliable sources, have not gone down well with the Pakistan Army high command as well. Discreet messages have been sent to Mr Zardari to “resolve all the issues through dialogue.”
The fear in political circles was that a cornered Musharraf might use his constitutional powers to dissolve the National Assembly. He is still the supreme commander of the armed forces and can order the Army chief to implement his orders against the elected government.
In 1993, the then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan had developed differences with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and in the resulting situation the then Army Chief, General Abdul Waheed Kakar, was forced to intervene and both President Ishaq Khan and PM Nawaz Sharif had to resign. The present high command of the army wants to avoid a similar situation.
It is expected that Asif Ali Zardari will now start his first ever direct dialogue with Musharraf in the coming few days just to avoid that very difficult situation. Despite his recent hard-hitting statement against Pervez Musharraf, the PPP Co-chairperson is planning to meet Musharraf, which will be a big political risk.
The date and time of his meeting have not been finalised yet. A close aide of Asif Ali Zardari claimed: “Our Co-chairperson will suggest to President Musharraf to step down in the larger interest of Pakistan.”
To consolidate his position, Zardari will be making serious efforts to strengthen his coalition. Sharif and Zardari will then try to resolve the issue of the deposed judges as quickly as possible.
The three-year term proposed in the PPP package for the Chief Justice could be extended to five years, as proposed by Nawaz Sharif. Both the PPP and PML-N leaders seem to agree on this limit.
Thus they would give deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry up to 2010 to stay as head of the Supreme Court. Zardari is already on record as saying: “Nawaz Sharif is my elder brother, I will not let down him and I am sure he will not let me down. Both of us will down our common enemies.”