Musharraf opponents reject reconciliation, threaten impeachment

The ruling coalition governmentof Pakistan rejected embattled President Pervez Musharraf's call for a "reconciliation approach" on Thursday, saying it would push ahead with impeachment proceedings if he doesn't resign.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani echoed Musharraf's call for reconciliation, but made clear that his address did not apply to the president's "one-man dictatorship," according to the Agence France-Presse news agency.

"The period of oppression is over forever," said Gilani in a speech in Islamabad Thursday morning.

"Dictatorship has become a story of the past."

Musharraf has to go, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told a cheering crowd in Lahore on Thursday, AFP said.

"To fight against terrorism and to solve economic problems, political stability is necessary," Musharraf said. "For political stability, a reconciliation approach should be adopted."

Calls for impeachment

Last week, Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto who now heads the Pakistan Peoples Party, announced he and his coalition partner, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, had agreed to begin impeachment proceedings against Musharraf.

The coalition, which holds a majority in Pakistan's parliament since its victory in February's elections, must secure two-thirds of the vote in both houses to impeach the former general, who ousted Sharif in a bloodless coup in 1999.

The allegations are designed to deflect public attention from the government's failure to tackle economic and security problems, says the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q party. Inflation is running at more than 20 per cent and Islamic militancy is rife.

The party says it wants Musharraf to fight the impeachment, but acknowledged Wednesday he could resign after an assembly in southern Sindh province passed a resolution urging him to go the third of Pakistan's four provinces to do so this week.

"He has two options: to stay and fight or quit and go home," Mushahid Hussain, PML-Q secretary-general, told the Associated Press. "If he fights back, we are with him. We will support him, and that is the preferred option."

Musharraf had discussed the possibility of resigning with friends and close aides from time to time since the February elections, said another senior official in the party, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The official spoke to the president Tuesday and knew of no imminent decision to quit.

Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, has previously said he would resign rather than face impeachment proceedings. But there are fears that Musharraf could use the power he retains to dismiss parliament.

Musharraf stepped down as army chief last year to run for a third term in office, but still has close ties to the military, which has intervened in political disputes in the past.

Lahore bloodshed

Meanwhile, a suicide bomber blew himself up just before midnight local timeon Wednesdayintheeastern city of Lahore, killing eight people and wounding at least 18 others, police said.

Police official Suhail Chaudhry said the dead included two police andsix civilians.

Security forces are frequent targets of suicide attackers in Pakistan,but most attackshave occurredin northwest tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, where Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked fighters are based.