The chairman of the Pakistan senate, Mian Mohammed Soomro was to be sworn in as care-taker prime minister of Pakistan, and to take the oath with his new cabinet later on Friday, November 16, officials said.
Earlier on Thursday, November 15, outgoing Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz visited General Pervez Musharraf, the president, who said he appreciated Aziz’s efforts, adding that the country’s booming economy was a result of his contributions.
Aziz was elected in 2004 by parliament, which for the first time in the country’s sixty years history completed its five-year tenure. It was dissolved to prepare for parliamentary elections that opposition leaders say will be flawed unless emergency rule is lifted.
PROMISES FAILED
While Musharraf has vowed to quit take off his uniform and become a civilian president, opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said she would not accept him
as Pakistan’s leader. "He has failed in fulfilling many promises made" with her, she told local media while remaining under house arrest at Lahore.
She pledged to form a national unity government with all political parties and opposition officials in Pakistan, including with exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Representatives of Pakistan’s Christian minority hope life will improve under a new government after Musharraf apparently failed to crackdown on Islamic militants that have attacked churches.
"Lets all bow before God and pray for the protection of the churches and Christians during the emergency period, proclaimed by the president Pervaiz Musharraf”, said the chairman of advocacy group Rays of Development Organization (ROD), Ferhan Mazher, ahead of a major prayer event Friday, November 16.
PRAYER DAY
He told BosNewsLife that ROD and other Christian groups and churches would "observe a special prayer and fasting day" adding that "we’ll ask God to bless us and protect us, churches and other Christian institutions from radical suicide bombers."
Mazher added that Pakistani Christians across the country would also pray for Pakistan’s security, prosperity and "for the safety of detained Christian political activists and human rights activists," several of whom have been detained and injured in clashes with police.
Musharraf has accused rights activists, including Bhutto, of fueling political turmoil and rejected Western pressure to quickly restore the constitution, by lifting the state of emergency. United States President George W. Bush has also appealed to Musharraf to end the state of emergency and hold "transparent" polls in the country, a key ally in the war against terrorism.
