Political battle may make Pak army restive for power: Report

The intensifying battle between Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif could result in tilting of political balance towards fundamentalists and even serve to make the military restive for "power again", according to a media report.

If the situation continues to worsen, there will be new opportunities for the religions right that would be inimical to Washington, The New York Times reported quoting Pakistani politicians and analysts.

The paper quoted officials as saying that though army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has vowed to keep the army out of politics, and is serious about his pledge, there could come a time when political instability becomes so great and the army would feel compelled to step in.

The domestic struggle is shaping up as a potential crisis for the Obama administration as it tries to focus the government on fighting the Al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgency, the Times said.

For Pakistan, where the military has ruled for more than half of the 61 years since independence and civilian governments have rarely completed a full term, combat between senior politicians is quite familiar, the Times noted.

The fresh political crisis was set off by a Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday that bars Sharif, and his brother, Shahbaz, from holding any elected office.

The decision was widely interpreted in Pakistan as a raw political maneuver engineered by Zardari to diminish the power of the two popular opposition figures, the paper said.

The moves against the Sharif brothers, the Times said, are likely to have upset the army, even though Nawaz Sharif was ousted from his second term as prime minister by an army coup.

The army "must be boiling inside," Talat Masood, a retired army general, was quoted as saying. "How can they tolerate this state of affairs?

The bulk of army soldiers come from Punjab, are nationalistic in their outlook, and have a natural inclination toward Sharif's party, he said.

By ordering one of his main political allies, the governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, to take over governance of the province, Zardari was hitting directly at the power center of the Sharif brothers, and, in effect, humiliating them, the paper quoted unidentified politicians as saying.

Some told the paper that Nawaz Sharif is now likely to work assiduously to bolster his popularity against Zardari.

The president's pro-American stance is anathema to large segments of the population, and Sharif could seek Islamist religious parties that have opposed American policy in Pakistan to come to his side, some politicians told the paper.

The religious forces could gravitate to Sharif without his open encouragement, Ishaq Khan Khakwani, a member of the PML-Q, and a former minister, told the paper. "The religious forces will come with Nawaz Sharif."

The Obama administration, which this week hosted Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Gen. Kayani in Washington, has had little to say about the unfolding political drama.

"Washington was certainly surprised by the court move and very concerned, both in political and military circles," Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, was quoted as saying by the Times.

The US, the paper said, has backed Zardari as president, arguing that as a man whose wife was killed by terrorists he understands the importance of the fight against what the American army is now calling an industrial-strength insurgency in Pakistan.

Missile strikes by CIA-operated drones against militants in the tribal areas increased significantly after Zardari came to power in September. He has given the Americans his support for the strikes, although the Pakistani government publicly complains about them, the paper said.

But his reputation in Washington would be likely to suffer as a consequence of his moves against the Sharif brothers, Masood said. "He is deflecting the attention of the whole country to something that is so irrelevant. He is banking on the United States, but America will only support him up to a point."