Pakistani PM to appear in court as political crisis worsens
The court ordered Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to appear on Thursday to explain his refusal to reopen the graft investigation, injecting fresh uncertainty into the political crisis threatening to engulf the country. If the court convicts Gilani of contempt, he could serve up to six months in prison and be disqualified from holding office.
The government already is locked in a bitter conflict with the army, and the ruling boosted the sense that the administration could fall, squeezed between the court and Pakistan’s generals. The government is also grappling with an ailing economy and a Taliban insurgency.
The escalating political crisis is a deep concern for the US, which is worried about instability in the nuclear-armed country and also needs the government’s help with the war in neighbouring Afghanistan.
“The Supreme Court and the government are in an open clash now, and it seems fairly obvious the court is unwilling to back off,” said Cyril Almeida, a columnist for Dawn newspaper.
“Once the Supreme Court, the army and the political opposition agree the government needs to go sooner rather than later, it seems very difficult for the government to stay on,” Almeida told The Associated Press.
Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan told reporters that the prime minister would appear before the court on Thursday as ordered.
The Supreme Court has ordered the government to ask Swiss authorities to reopen a corruption case against President Asif Ali Zardari that dates back to the 1990s and involves the jurisdiction of the Swiss courts. The government has refused, saying Zardari has immunity, and supporters say the court is pursuing a vendetta against the country’s civilian leadership.
The government also is at odds with the army over an unsigned memo delivered to Washington last year, offering the US a raft of favourable security policies in exchange for its help in thwarting a supposed military coup.
The army was outraged by the memo and pushed the Supreme Court to open an inquiry, against government wishes. Some observers believe the court’s pressure on the graft case is being orchestrated by the military to put maximum strain on the government.
Pakistan has long been plagued by tension between the civilian government and the army, which has seized power in three coups since the country was founded in 1947. The government has given the generals control over foreign and security policy, but the civilian leadership and the top brass have never seen eye-to-eye since Zardari and Gilani took office in 2008.
The head of the Supreme Court, Mohammad Iftikhar Chaudhry, has also clashed with Zardari.
The court initiated the contempt proceedings against Gilani yesterday, after the government failed to respond to an order outlining a series of punitive options the judges could take if the government did not reopen the case against Zardari. Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq told the court he had not received instructions from the country’s leaders on how to respond to the order.
The government has vowed to see out its term, scheduled to end in 2013, and oversee elections. But the crisis threatens to upend that, and some lawmakers in Zardari’s party speculate that elections could be called earlier to ease tensions.
Gilani criticised the army last week for cooperating with the Supreme Court probe into the memo scandal. He said the standoff is nothing less than a choice between “democracy and dictatorship.” This followed a warning from the generals of possible “grievous consequences” ahead.
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