Thaindian News

Islamabad, Sep 3 (IANS) Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has agreed to transfer his powers relating to the appointment of the service chiefs, the chairman of joint chiefs of staff committee and governors to the prime minister. He has informed a parliamentary committee on constitutional reforms about this, Online news agency reported Thursday.
This would be done by repealing the 17th constitutional amendment that former president Pervez Musharraf had pushed through in 2002 transferring the powers to the presidency from the prime minister’s office.

The move could pave the way for the return of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to the ruling federal coalition.

Quoting sources, Online said Zardari had summoned Raza Rabbani, chairman of parliament’s constitutional reforms committee, and asked him to work freely and vest with the president only those powers that were laid down in the constitution as it existed in 1973.

The president has also agreed to make appointments of the auditor general of Pakistan, the chief election commissioner and other positions as provided in the constitution only on the advice of the prime minister.

Sources close to Zardari said some federal ministers and other close associates, during

meetings of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in Karachi and Islamabad, had cautioned him against surrendering his powers all at once as this would make him weaker.

Zardari, however, refused to accept their advice saying he wanted the restoration of the 1973 constitution in its original form and would deliver on his promises made to Sharif the other allies of the ruling coalition.

The president also pointed out that in both his addresses to parliament, he had made it clear that it should on his powers, He would, therefore, agree to whatever the parliamentary committee recommended.

The repeal of the 17th amendment was one of the two major reasons the PML-N had walked out of the ruling coalition after it finished as the second largest party behind the PPP in the February 2008 general elections.

The other was the restoration of the 80-odd Supreme Court and high court judges Musharraf had sacked when they refused to take fresh oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order he had promulgated along with the emergency Nov 3, 2007.

The judges were finally restored after Sharif led a bruising lawyer’s ‘long march’ to Islamabad in March. Zardari held out till the very last minute and buckled only after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Pakistani Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani read him the riot act.