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Pakistan's president steps down
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Copyright ) 1997 Nando.net
Copyright ) 1997 The Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (December 2, 1997 10:47 a.m. EST
http://www.nando.net) -- President Farooq Ahmed Leghari resigned
Tuesday, a surprise move in an escalating political crisis that has
divided Pakistan's government and raised fears of a military takeover.
The crisis -- arising out of a feud between the chief justice and prime
minister -- has split the Supreme Court and Parliament and cast the army
chief in the unlikely role of mediator.
Conflicting rulings issued Tuesday by rival Supreme Court justices
deepened the crisis.
Earlier Tuesday, army chief of staff Gen. Jehangir Karamat shuttled
between the president and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, trying to broker
a solution.
Later, the president resigned and it was announced that an acting chief
justice would be named. There was no immediate explanation for either
move.
Underlying the chaos were fears that the army would step in to take
control in Pakistan, which has been under military rule for 25 of its 50
years.
After the conflicting judgments came out of the Supreme Court, Karamat
held a series of emergency meetings with both the president and prime
minister, as well as Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah.
It's not known definitively what occurred during the closed-door
meetings, but Karamat is believed to have pushed for Pakistan's
Parliament to continue.
The current crisis stems from a clash several months ago between Sharif
and Shah over the appointment of five new judges to the Supreme Court,
which expanded the bench from 12 to 17.
Shah accused the prime minister and the government of manipulating the
Supreme Court and creating the divisions on the bench.
Shah eventually won that battle, but not before he resurrected
corruption charges against the prime minister and struck down other
legislation passed by Parliament. He also charged the prime minister
with contempt of court.
Sharif has accused both the chief justice and the president of
conspiring to undermine his 10-month-old government.
Earlier this year, both the government and opposition parties had voted
in a constitutional amendment to withdraw the president's power to
dismiss elected governments.
Leghari invoked that power in 1996 to dismiss Prime Minister Benazir
Bhutto.
Tuesday, the chief justice ruled to restore the president's
constitutional power to dismiss Parliament. Many had expected Leghari
would then dismiss Sharif's 10-month-old government, after earlier
statements by the president accusing Sharif's government of staging an
attack on the Supreme Court and of resorting to the "law of the jungle."
But almost immediately after Shah's ruling, 10 other justices sitting in
a nearby courtroom overturned it. These justices have been opposed to
Shah on the grounds that he was wrongly promoted to chief justice, ahead
of other more senior judges.
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