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Pakistan Cabinet sworn in

ISLAMABAD: Cabinet members of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) wore black armbands in protest against President Pervez Musharraf as they were sworn in by him along with 15 Ministers of the Pakistan People’s Party-led coalition government on Monday.

In a sign of the uncertain times ahead for General (retd.) Musharraf, including a possible push for impeachment by the PML(N), its Ministers said they wore the black armbands to make it clear that while they had agreed to be sworn in by him, it did not mean they had accepted him as the legitimate President.

The PML(N) is also the main party in the coalition pushing for the reinstatement of the deposed Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudhary, and 63 judges of the superior courts dismissed in General Musharraf’s November 3, 2007 emergency rule.

Chaudhary Nisar Ali, a newly sworn in PML(N) Minister, said the party had made a sacrifice by taking the oath of office from General Musharraf “to achieve the larger objective of the restoration of the judiciary.”

In yet another sign of the mounting pressure on Geneal Musharraf, Law Minister Farooq Naek told Dawn television that the November 3 “provisional constitutional order” could not be considered legal as it had not been validated by Parliament.

He said the Supreme Court, which had validated the PCO, had “no power to make the law, or to validate the law, only Parliament can do this, only Parliament can make constitutional amendments” and the government would examine how to deal with the imbroglio.

Later in the day, following the Cabinet’s first meeting under Prime Minister Gillani, Information Minister Sherry Rehman announced that it had been decided to set up two committees, one for the restoration of the judiciary as promised by the PPP and the PML(N) in their Murree Declaration, and the other to go into the abolition of the Frontier Crimes Regulation.

Both committees are to report to the Law Ministry.

As the swearing-in was under way at his Aiwan-e-Sadr office here, Mr Chaudhary, recently released from house arrest by the new government, was getting a hero’s welcome in Quetta, where he went to address a lawyers’ meeting at the High Court.

Mr. Chaudhary is a Punjabi but Quetta is his hometown, and the lawyers of the city rolled out the red carpet for him. After a rapturous reception at the airport at around noon, Mr. Chaudhary’s motorcade was still on its way to the High Court late in the evening. Hundreds of lawyers and members of the public turned out to greet him, according to media reports from the city.

In all, 24 Cabinet Ministers were sworn in of whom 11 are from the PPP, nine from the PML(N), two from the Awami National Party, and one each from the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islami and from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi of the PPP is the Foreign Affairs Minister. Aside from the crucial Information portfolio under Ms. Rehman, the party has kept the Defence Ministry, giving it to Chaudhary Ahmed Mukhtar. It has also taken the Interior Ministry with Rehman Malik, a former police official and a confidante of the late Benazir Bhutto, heading it.

PML(N)’s Ishaq Dar has got the important Finance, with the Petroleum and Natural Resources and Education portfolios also going to the party.

Another important appointment is that of Hussain Haqqani, a Boston-based academic and a friend and adviser of Benazir and her husband and PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, as Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs. It is likely that Mr. Haqqani will be appointed Ambassador to Washington.

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