The Hindu : Front Page : Soomro sworn in caretaker PM

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 17, 2007
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Soomro sworn in caretaker PM

Nirupama Subramanian

Benazir, Asma Jahangir freed; opposition rejects new government

- PHOTO: AFP

CARETAKING IN CRISIS: Pakistan's military ruler General Pervez Musharraf administers the oath of office to Muhammedmian Soomro (right) as caretaker Prime Minister in Islamabad on Friday.

ISLAMABAD: Muhammedmian Soomro, chairman of the Pakistan Senate, was on Friday sworn in the caretaker Prime Minister by President Pervez Musharraf to take the country into the January 2008 parliamentary elections.

Pakistan People’s Party leader Benazir Bhutto, freed from house arrest a few hours before the arrival of U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, rejected the caretaker government and said free and fair elections could not be held under emergency rule.

“This caretaker government is an extension of the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) [the ruling party until Thursday]. We reject this caretaker government,” she said following her release in Lahore.

The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) also rejected the caretaker government. Its president Sahbaz Sharif said no opposition party was consulted on its formation, and free and fair elections would be impossible under it.

The new government betrayed the people by taking oath under the provisional constitutional order, Ms. Bhutto said, renewing her call for united opposition protests against the Musharraf regime.

“I want to have a conversation with all opposition parties. We are also speaking to members of civil society to see how we can put together a coalition of interests for a democratic Pakistan,” she said, confirming that she had spoken to the former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, and also with human rights activist Asma Jahangir.

The Punjab government also freed Ms. Jahangir from house arrest in Lahore on Friday morning along with all women it had detained since the imposition of emergency.

The new Prime Minister, meanwhile, called on political parties to end their protests and help the government hold free and fair elections. Twenty-two Ministers of the caretaker Cabinet also took oath. They were told by President Musharraf that their focus should be on continuity.

In an address to the gathering assembled for the swearing-in ceremony, Gen. Musharraf, dressed in a black sherwani, called it the “smoothest transition” in the history of Pakistan.

He said he had introduced the “essence of democracy in Pakistan, whether anyone believes it or not.”

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