Pak in fresh chaos, SC orders PM arrest

Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered the arrest of Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf in a corruption case on Tuesday afternoon, dramatically raising the stakes in a tense standoff between the government and its opponents.

The court order came as an enigmatic preacher turned politician, Muhammad Tahir ul Qadri, addressed thousands of supporters outside parliament and repeated calls for the government’s ouster. In earlier speeches, he has said that a caretaker administration led by technocrats should take its place.

The confluence of the two events stoked growing speculation that Pakistan’s powerful military was quietly supporting moves that would delay general elections that are due to take place this spring, most likely through the imposition of a military-backed caretaker administration.

It was not certain that the two events were linked. Some analysts said that in calling for the prime minister’s arrest, the court, which is led by the independent-minded Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, was simply taking advantage of anti-government sentiment generated by Qadri in order to pursue its longstanding grudge against President Asif Ali Zardari.

Whatever the motivations, the court’s actions added to the chaos in Pakistan, with the stock market dropping 3 per cent.

In its order issued Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered the National Accountability Bureau, a government body that investigates graft, to arrest Ashraf and 15 other senior current or former officials, including a former finance minister and a former finance secretary.

The case relates to longstanding allegations that Ashraf took lakhs of rupees in kickbacks as part of a deal to

... contd.