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Islamabad: Pakistan's four-party ruling coalition claims it has the two-thirds majority required in a joint sitting of the two Houses of Parliament to impeach President Pervez Musharraf, the country's first head of state facing such ouster.
The former army chief, who ruled the Islamic republic of 160-million people with absolute powers for eight years after seizing power through a coup in 1999, has vowed to fight it out, with the support of his political loyalists.
The total membership of the National Assembly or the lower house (342 seats) and the Senate or upper house (100 seats) stands at 442. The coalition needs at least 295 to pass an impeachment resolution.
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the coalition leader, has 124 seats in the National Assembly with its major ally, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, having 91. Among the two other partners, the Awami National Party has 13 members and the Jamiat Ulema Islam seven.
With 17 independents in the assembly, who are sure to side with the government, the coalition has the support of 252 members of National Assembly while in the Senate the coalition parties command around half of the 100 seats.
The pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q has 51 members in the National Assembly and close to 40 senators. Karachi-based Mutahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM), which has reportedly assured its support to the beleaguered president despite being a partner in Sindh provincial government with the PPP, has 25 members in the National Assembly and several senators.
Tough fight
Top PML-Q leaders, Shujaat Hussain and former Punjab province chief minister Pervaiz Elahi, have publicly declared they would put up a tough fight to defend Musharraf, but their numbers do not match their tall claim.
The president, who a day earlier had withdrawn his abrupt decision not to go on a visit to China to attend the Olympics opening because of the looming threat to his future, changed his mind yesterday and cancelled the trip.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was asked by PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari to undertake the visit in place of the president and he left for Beijing in the evening. With the odds against him in parliament, the hounded president still has a weapon in the form of the constitutional authority to dissolve the assembly.
But coalition parties and most independent analysts and commentators see little chance of the president taking such a plunge in the existing hostile environment and the army's repeated assertion to keep away from politics.
The provincial assembly in most populous Punjab province ruled by the PML-N has passed a resolution recommending to strike off clause 58 (2) (b) from the constitution to take away the presidential authority to dissolve the elected assembly. The clause introduced by late military dictator Mohammad Zia ul Haq in 1985, has been used in 1988, 1990, 1993, 1996 and the last time in 1999 by Musharraf to dismiss elected governments.
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