THE MORNING BRIEF
By JOSEPH SCHUMAN
The Morning Brief, a look at the day's biggest news, is emailed to subscribers by 7 a.m. every
Yousuf Raza Gilani, a veteran Pakistani politician loyal to the late Benazir Bhutto and jailed for five years under the rule of Pervez Musharraf, was sworn in as the country's new prime minister today, bringing change that could threaten Mr. Musharraf's presidency and jeopardize American hopes for a robust campaign against Pakistan's militant Islamists.
Despite denials from the biggest bloc of the new governing coalition, the Pakistan People's Party, there is widespread speculation that Mr. Gilani is keeping the premier's seat warm until Ms. Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, can run for parliament in a May by-election and thus qualify to lead the government. But the 55-year-old Mr. Gilani arrives in office -- sworn in by Mr. Musharraf -- with a three-decade record of serving the PPP even as he maintained a working relationship with its coalition partner and one-time political nemesis, Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N. Born into an important landowning family, like Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Sharif, Mr. Gilani was a minister in the governments she led in the 1990s and then parliamentary speaker. And despite the enmity between the two parties during that decade -- which included physical attacks in the parliamentary aisles -- Mr Gillani enjoyed a reputation for evenhandedness , as the Associated Press reports.
His credentials in the anti-Musharraf coalition are bolstered by the five years he spent in prison amid then-Gen. Musharraf's anticorruption drive. The charges against him were dropped along with those against Mr. Sharif and Ms. Bhutto last year. And as the two parties try to rule together and roll back the changes enacted by Mr. Musharraf's eight-year "one-man show," as Newsweek put it, Messrs. Zardari and Sharif may need a premier with Mr. Gilani's pragmatic reputation, even if de facto decision-making rests with them.
He has already taken two steps in defiance of Mr. Musharraf: a pledge to push through a parliamentary resolution calling for a United Nations investigation of Ms. Bhutto's assassination, and an order -- even before he was sworn in -- ending the house arrest of ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and dozens of other members of the judiciary who opposed Mr. Musharraf's re-election last year when he was still Army chief. At the moment he was elected by parliament yesterday, police in Islamabad had already received the order to tear down the barricades around the home of Mr. Chaudhry and other judges, the Guardian reports. Reinstatement of Mr. Chaudhry, promised by the new government within a month, could renew constitutional challenges to Mr. Musharraf's election. And there are signs his influence continues to wane.
Yesterday also brought the first significant reshuffle of the army's hierarchy since Mr. Musharraf resigned from the military last fall and left Gen. Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani in charge, the Karachi-based newspaper Dawn reports. Among them was the removal of Lt. Gen. Shafaat Ullah Shah, a former military secretary to President Musharraf, from the post of Corps Commander of Lahore to the chief of the General Headquarters' logistics staff. It wasn't clear what the changes mean for policy, but the incoming government has already said it favors a new military strategy for dealing with the Islamist militants in the frontier regions near Afghanistan who are thought to be allied with the Taliban. Messrs. Zardari and Sharif told the New York Times they prefer to negotiate rather than fight the militants. "Obviously what they have been doing for the last eight years has not been working. Even a fool knows that," Mr. Sharif said. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte arrived in Islamabad today to hold talks with Mr. Sharif even as Mr. Gilani was being sworn in.
The Morning Brief, a look at the day's biggest news, is emailed to subscribers by 7 a.m. every
Yousuf Raza Gilani, a veteran Pakistani politician loyal to the late Benazir Bhutto and jailed for five years under the rule of Pervez Musharraf, was sworn in as the country's new prime minister today, bringing change that could threaten Mr. Musharraf's presidency and jeopardize American hopes for a robust campaign against Pakistan's militant Islamists.
Despite denials from the biggest bloc of the new governing coalition, the Pakistan People's Party, there is widespread speculation that Mr. Gilani is keeping the premier's seat warm until Ms. Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, can run for parliament in a May by-election and thus qualify to lead the government. But the 55-year-old Mr. Gilani arrives in office -- sworn in by Mr. Musharraf -- with a three-decade record of serving the PPP even as he maintained a working relationship with its coalition partner and one-time political nemesis, Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N. Born into an important landowning family, like Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Sharif, Mr. Gilani was a minister in the governments she led in the 1990s and then parliamentary speaker. And despite the enmity between the two parties during that decade -- which included physical attacks in the parliamentary aisles -- Mr Gillani enjoyed a reputation for evenhandedness , as the Associated Press reports.
His credentials in the anti-Musharraf coalition are bolstered by the five years he spent in prison amid then-Gen. Musharraf's anticorruption drive. The charges against him were dropped along with those against Mr. Sharif and Ms. Bhutto last year. And as the two parties try to rule together and roll back the changes enacted by Mr. Musharraf's eight-year "one-man show," as Newsweek put it, Messrs. Zardari and Sharif may need a premier with Mr. Gilani's pragmatic reputation, even if de facto decision-making rests with them.
He has already taken two steps in defiance of Mr. Musharraf: a pledge to push through a parliamentary resolution calling for a United Nations investigation of Ms. Bhutto's assassination, and an order -- even before he was sworn in -- ending the house arrest of ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and dozens of other members of the judiciary who opposed Mr. Musharraf's re-election last year when he was still Army chief. At the moment he was elected by parliament yesterday, police in Islamabad had already received the order to tear down the barricades around the home of Mr. Chaudhry and other judges, the Guardian reports. Reinstatement of Mr. Chaudhry, promised by the new government within a month, could renew constitutional challenges to Mr. Musharraf's election. And there are signs his influence continues to wane.
Yesterday also brought the first significant reshuffle of the army's hierarchy since Mr. Musharraf resigned from the military last fall and left Gen. Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani in charge, the Karachi-based newspaper Dawn reports. Among them was the removal of Lt. Gen. Shafaat Ullah Shah, a former military secretary to President Musharraf, from the post of Corps Commander of Lahore to the chief of the General Headquarters' logistics staff. It wasn't clear what the changes mean for policy, but the incoming government has already said it favors a new military strategy for dealing with the Islamist militants in the frontier regions near Afghanistan who are thought to be allied with the Taliban. Messrs. Zardari and Sharif told the New York Times they prefer to negotiate rather than fight the militants. "Obviously what they have been doing for the last eight years has not been working. Even a fool knows that," Mr. Sharif said. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte arrived in Islamabad today to hold talks with Mr. Sharif even as Mr. Gilani was being sworn in.
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