Tension mounts between Musharraf and PPP

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf was on Friday at odds with the slain ex-premier Benazir Bhutto's widower, who said the day before that his party was facing 'tremendous' public pressure to oust the embattled leader, media reports said.
Asif Ali Zardari, the head of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) that leads country's coalition government, told the Press Trust of India (PTI) that people did not want "reconciliation" with Musharraf.
The people of Pakistan want Musharraf to go. "And I am the servant of the people, not the master of the people," the PPP chairman said in an interview that was released on Thursday, reportedly provoking the embattled president.
"The president has taken a strong note of Mr Zardari's interview and decided to end all backdoor contacts with his party," Geo news channel quoted sources in the president's office as saying.
The unnamed sources said Musharraf was planning a meeting with PPP Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Friday or Saturday to express his reservations over the content of the interview.
PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar shrugged off Musharraf's objections. "We have no contact with the president on the issue, neither do we want to have any contact with him," he said.
The PPP emerged as the largest party in the February 18 elections, which saw a thrashing defeat of Musharraf's political backers. It formed a coalition government together with the second largest Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz of the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
But unlike other coalition partners, it avoided any direct conflict with Musharraf, who after backdoor contacts granted amnesty to Zardari and his late wife Bhutto over graft charges last year.
Analysts say Zardari tried to return the favour by declining from the restoration of more than 60 judges sacked by Musharraf under an emergency order last year. When reinstated the judges could annul his controversial re-election for the second presidential term.
This put the seven-week-old alliance government at risk. Nine ministers of PML-N resigned from the cabinet on May 13 over the issue, triggering sharp criticism by the public that views the judges as champions of democracy for their defiance towards a former military dictator.
Analysts have also predicted that the PPP could face a major plunge in its popularity and an eventual demise of the country's major liberal force due to its soft approach towards ex-general Musharraf, who took over in a bloodless coup in 1999.
On pressure from the world community following the imposition of emergency on November 3, Musharraf stepped down as military chief and took the role of a civilian president. But Zardari said it was not enough to satisfy the public.
"The president is a relic of the past and he stands somewhere between us and democracy.... He has taken off his uniform thanks to the dialogue by my wife and the world pressure," he was cited as saying by PTI.
"But that does not make him into a democrat or a civilian president. That doesn't mean that his presidency is legal. I've got all these issues. I have a tremendous amount of pressure from the people of Pakistan."
However, once pushed into a tight corner the former military commando, Musharraf, could strike back by dissolving the government and the parliament under the constitutional powers granted to him by the last government of his political allies.
Zaradri's party is reportedly working on a proposal to be put forward in the parliament to cut down these powers, but president intends to resist the constitutional package.
"The president will at no cost accept the curtailment of his powers," Geo news channel cited sources.
A collision between the president and the coalition government could further exacerbate political uncertainty, a bad omen for the South Asian country that is currently troubled by rising Islamic militancy, high inflation and a food shortage.