Within the last few months, the country of Pakistan was in a state of chaos and turmoil after the assassination of then-Pakistan People’s Party leader and former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Back in October, Bhutto had returned from her eight-year self-imposed exile from Dubai, UAE.
Bhutto’s return sparked violent assassination attempts on her life. On December 27, 2007, Bhutto was assassinated. Parliamentary elections set for January were pushed to February.
While the Taliban in Pakistan has been blamed for Bhutto’s death, many others have blamed Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N Party and the Asif Ali Zardari led PPP won a majority of the seats in the parliament. A crushing defeat was delivered to Musharraf.
US President George W. Bush had urged the parliament to work with Musharraf. So far, Musharraf has been a key ally to the fight against terror.
Nawaz and Sharif had both agreed to a new coalition parliament. There were talks about a move by the coalition parliament to move towards impeaching Musharraf from office. Now, it is reported that Musharraf may end up resigning from office soon. This could be in preparation from a possible impeachment.
But, Musharraf has not released any statement at the moment. Mostly, talks of Musharraf’s possible resignation are speculation. Many within Musharraf’s administration feel that any chance of holding onto power has been loss.
At the same time, Musharraf’s official spokesman has said otherwise. One side of the spectrum says Musharraf plans to resign and the other side says that Musharraf has no intentions of resigning.