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Pakistan's Musharraf swears in hostile cabinet
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Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf swore in a cabinet formed by his political opponents on Monday, with some members sporting black armbands in protest at his continuing hold on power. Assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and former premier Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) dominate the 24-member cabinet. Musharraf, a key ally in the US "war on terror", sat grim-faced alongside new prime minister and key Bhutto aide Yousuf Raza Gilani for the ceremony at the presidential palace in Islamabad. Members of Sharif's party wore black bands around their upper arms to show their defiance of Musharraf, who ousted Sharif and his elected government in a military coup in 1999, state television showed. Several of the new ministers served jail terms under his regime, PML-N spokesman Siddiqul Farooq said. Gilani himself spent five years in prison under Musharraf's rule. The ceremony came a week after Gilani was elected as prime minister following the February 18 elections in which Musharraf's political allies were routed. No party head attended the swearing-in, a government official said. Coalition leaders boycotted last week's swearing-in of Gilani by Musharraf. The cabinet includes 11 ministers from the PPP and nine from the PML-N, two from the ethnic Pashtun Awami National Party, one from the hardline Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and one member from the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. The cabinet includes two women, one each from the PPP and PML-N. Ishaq Dar, the incoming finance minister, said the economic policies of the previous pro-Musharraf government would have to be reversed. "They are handing over the economy in mutilated shape," Dar, who is from Sharif's party, told reporters on Sunday. The World Bank last week warned that Pakistan faces an economic crisis unless it takes urgent action, especially to address rising prices of foodstuffs, fuel and commodities. Musharraf said late Sunday that he would cooperate with the new government to help the country, which is in the grip of a wave of Islamic militant violence in addition to its economic strife. "I would like to extend my cooperation to the government... with only one single-minded objective in mind -- the progress and development of the country and welfare and well-being of its people", the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan quoted Musharraf as saying. (AFP) |