The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Islamabad

Pakistan's new government is avoiding a showdown with President Pervez Musharraf because it lacks the support needed to impeach him, the head of the ruling coalition's leading party said in remarks released Saturday.

But Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, did not rule out confronting the unpopular former army strongman if the new government manages to muster the necessary two-thirds parliament majority in the future.

"The parliament and the president have a formal relationship. For the time being, we are not breaking up that status quo. We don't have that power," Zardari told the British Broadcasting Corp.'s Urdu language service.

"For the sake of the country, we don't want confrontation. But this doesn't mean we accept him (Musharraf). If we get the two-thirds majority, we will think about making him accountable," he said. Zardari took over Bhutto's party after she was assassinated in December and led it to victory in February's parliament elections. It leads a new coalition government that has vowed to trim Musharraf's powers and revise his U.S.-backed counterterrorism policies.

Musharraf seized power in a military coup in 1999 and became a key ally in Washington's war on terror.

But his authority has waned since he retired as army chief last year and the defeat of his political allies in the parliamentary elections.

The new government plans to strip Musharraf of the power to dissolve parliament and has pledged to reinstate Supreme Court judges purged when Musharraf imposed emergency rule in November to stop legal challenges to him continuing for another five years as president.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who leads the second-largest party in the four-party ruling coalition, is pushing hard for Musharraf to quit. Sharif was ejected from office and exiled in the 1999 coup.

But Zardari said the government has other things to do besides "besieging the president."

Pakistan faces mounting economic problems, including electricity shortages and spiraling inflation. The government is struggling to draw up a new strategy to counter Islamic extremism and contain ballooning budget and trade deficits.