Musharraf May Face Impeachment by Pakistan's New Parliament

By Khalid Qayum and Khaleeq Ahmed

Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistani voters decide today whether to empower a new parliament to challenge President Pervez Musharraf's military-backed rule.

His opponents, poised to win a majority, may try to impeach him if they win the required two-thirds of seats. Power sharing is likely if they fall short of that threshold.

``The national mood clearly indicates that political parties opposed to Musharraf will win a clear majority,'' said Hassan Abbas, a Harvard University political scientist. ``Even in moderately fair elections, anti-Musharraf parties will have an upper hand.''

Uncertainty likely will follow the election as lawmakers decide how to employ their power in a politically unstable, nuclear-armed country on the frontline of the war against terrorism. A suicide attack killed more than 40 people on the last day of campaigning on Feb. 16 after terrorist and sectarian killings doubled last year.

Pakistan's two main opposition parties -- the late Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party and former prime minister Mohammad Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League -- both have called for Musharraf to step down. Sharif, 58, has gone further, promising impeachment proceedings. While not ruling that out, Bhutto's party has said it's open to sharing power with Musharraf.

Even a landslide opposition victory won't necessarily dislodge the president. Musharraf, 64, has the constitutional authority to dissolve parliament. That power and concerns about rigged balloting lead some analysts to predict that opposition clout will remain limited.

Weak Coalition?

``The next government will most likely be a coalition led by a weak prime minister facing an arbitrary president,'' said Ishtiaq Ahmed, associate professor of international relations at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.

Events have swung the public against the president in recent months, including former prime minister Bhutto's Dec. 27 assassination while campaigning. Support also has been undercut by his imposition of emergency rule in November, sacking of Supreme Court judges and detention of thousands of opponents, as well as inflation and electric-power cuts.

His approval rating dropped to 15 percent, from 30 percent in November, according to a late January opinion poll released Feb. 11 by the Washington-based International Republican Institute. About 75 percent wanted him to resign, up eight points from November.

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