ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 16 — As President Pervez Musharraf begins his campaign this week for re-election to another five-year term, senior figures in the governing party have warned that the Supreme Court will almost certainly block his nomination for president and declare it unconstitutional.
American efforts to prod General Musharraf into a power-sharing arrangement with the exiled opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, as a way for him to continue as president would run into the same difficulty, the politicians said.
The Supreme Court has a new-found independence since Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry fought off an attempt by General Musharraf this year to dismiss him and won reinstatement on July 20, the legislators said.
The chief justice has made clear his determination to uphold the Constitution and see an end to autocratic government, and he now represents the biggest obstacle for General Musharraf’s efforts to stay on as president.
“I think it is very difficult for him to get through the question of eligibility,” the minister of state for information technology and telecommunication, Ishaq Khan Khakwani, said in an interview this week. “I would wish that he get through, but there are too many ifs and buts.”
The unusually blunt comments in interviews from the general’s own supporters, including a former prime minister and the vice president of the governing party, the Pakistan Muslim League, are an indication of what they see as a strong shift against General Musharraf’s continued military rule.
Opposition parties have raised at least five objections to General Musharraf’s nomination as president, and since most of them touch on the Constitution, the objections will go to the Supreme Court for decisions, Mr. Khakwani said. Not least among them is the fact he is both the president and the army chief of staff, something the Constitution bars.
Mr. Khakwani and others said General Musharraf should resign his military post if he wanted to overcome the opposition in the courts and in the streets. They would back him as a civilian candidate for president, they said, but as a military chief, his position was increasingly untenable.
But some said that even giving up his army post might not be enough.
Among the thorniest of problems is whether General Musharraf, 64, who seized power in a coup in 1999 and then was made president by referendum in 2002, can be considered to have already served the maximum two consecutive terms in office.
Then there is the fact that even if General Musharraf resigned as the army’s chief, technically he should allow two years to lapse before running for elected office.
Finally, there is the question of the appropriateness of having the general elected for a new five-year term by the current National Assembly, which would be dissolved immediately after the election. That vote is to be held by an electoral college of the national and provincial parliaments between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15.
“Politically and morally I do not think he should be re-elected by the sitting assembly,” Mr. Khakwani said. “If I were to offer an opinion to him, I would say, ‘Sir, please, take off your uniform, appoint a new chief of army staff and stand for election.’ ”
But so far the general has rejected that idea. He told party supporters on Thursday that he would run for re-election in uniform, Reuters reported.
General Musharraf, who came very close last week to imposing emergency rule but backed away after heavy media, political and diplomatic pressure, has continued to insist that his plans are in accordance with the Constitution.
Yet more and more of his political supporters say the Supreme Court is unlikely to reconcile his ambitions with the law, even if he agrees to a power-sharing deal with Ms. Bhutto.
Such a deal envisages her giving him support to change the Constitution to allow him to continue in power.
Richard A. Boucher, the United States assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, who was recently in Islamabad for two days of talks with the government, said General Musharraf had made a commitment to carrying out the transition from military rule to democracy, and to addressing the issue of his army post during that transition, but Mr. Boucher declined to say more.
The prospect that General Musharraf’s nomination will be struck down means the party should prepare one or two reserve candidates, Mr. Khakwani said. He suggested Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz or the president of the Pakistan Muslim League, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, as alternatives.
Most political supporters of the president who were interviewed said they preferred that the general resign and that he test his popularity for president after new parliamentary elections.
“I would advise free and fair elections and that he behave like a fatherly figure,” said Riaz Hussein Pirzada, an experienced legislator who joined the Pakistan Muslim League in 2002 because he knew and liked General Musharraf. “If he has to transfer power, it should be done legally and in a calm manner. No one can stay forever, and he has done a lot for the country.”
The mood in the country, led by lawyers’ associations and the political opposition, may overtake any power-sharing deal between General Musharraf and Ms. Bhutto, legislators said.
“There will be a wider movement against the president,” Syed Kabir Ali Wasti, vice president of the Pakistan Muslim League, predicted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/world/asia/17pakistan.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
The bar associations, which orchestrated a countrywide campaign in support of Chief Justice Chaudhry, would begin a new campaign against the president’s election in uniform when they returned from summer break on Sept. 1, he said.
“I expect a successful movement,” he said. “They are opinion writers and very important as far as public opinion is concerned.”
Mr. Pirzada agreed. “The government is in a difficult position because of the lawyers,” he said. “They are in a very tough mood. I think it will be a very difficult month for Pakistan.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/world/asia/17pakistan.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin