Pakistan People's Party (PPP) will employ all possible tactics to buy more time till the general elections but will not write a letter to Swiss authorities for reopening of graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari, it is learnt. According to sources within the ruling alliance, a strategy has been devised to insulate the Prime Minister against contempt of court conviction. The coalition partners have been taken into confidence with respect to the new strategy.
As the apex court moved to annul the newly-enacted Contempt of Court Act under which immunity was extended to the Prime Minister and his cabinet members, among others, from contempt of court charges, the PPP leadership began laying options before the coalition partners.
Sources said that one option being considered was to file a review petition against the Supreme Court's Friday's verdict. A second one that would be concurrent with the first one is to table a new contempt of court bill in parliament with slight modifications and allow that to take its natural course again which would buy some time.
However, this new law is unlikely to be passed before August 8 (Wednesday) deadline given to Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf to indicate whether he would abide by the court orders to write a letter to the Swiss authorities for reopening the cases against President Zardari. The bench in its short order had observed that it wanted to bring the solution of the pending issue by August 8, 2012.
Passage of any new bill from both houses of the parliament and then to be signed into an act by the President will take a minimum of a couple of days. A meeting of coalition partners jointly presided over by President Zardari and Prime Minister Ashraf here late Friday night also discussed the situation arising out of the apex court Friday 's decision and vowed that they would continue to uphold the supremacy of the parliament. The meeting expressed its resolve to uphold the right of parliament to legislate and pledged that this right would not be compromised--no matter what the odds and costs.
According to analysts, the ruling coalition is determined not to write the letter to Swiss courts, and is unlikely to entertain the court's recommendation for politicians to make adjustments (as the courts cannot do so). The court also observed that once the letter is written then if advised by the Attorney-General of Pakistan to stipulate immunity for the President, the bench would do so.
Comments
Comments are closed.