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Power plays: who could be Pakistan’s next PM?

Activists in Peshawar gather to celebrate the Supreme Court decision against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. AFP
Updated 28 July 2017
AFP
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Power plays: who could be Pakistan’s next PM?

Updated 28 July 2017
AFP

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was Friday ousted from the top office by the Supreme Court, but as the head of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party he will be able to nominate his successor.
Sharif’s chosen candidate will be put to a vote in the National Assembly — a rubber stamp affair as the PML-N holds a strong majority in the house.
His daughter Maryam Nawaz is commonly touted as his political heir, but she does not currently hold elected office so cannot be a candidate this time around.
Pakistani politics often see dark horses emerge, but the most likely candidates for the country’s next prime minister are as follows:

Shahbaz Sharif
Speculation within the vocal local media suggests that the party is planning to bring in an interim prime minister for a few weeks before electing Sharif’s younger brother Shahbaz Sharif to the post.
The young Sharif is currently chief minister of powerful Punjab province — the Sharif family stronghold. He would have to step down from that role and be elected to the National Assembly before he was eligible to become prime minister.
That will require a party loyalist to resign from his seat in the national parliament, sparking a hasty vote that Shahbaz would contest on the PML-N ticket.
Shahbaz is considered more intelligent but less charismatic than his older brother.
He has controlled Punjab — Pakistan’s most populous and prosperous province — for much of the last decade, presiding over a series of big ticket infrastructure projects, including Pakistan’s first metro bus service.

Khawaja Asif
Defence Minister Khawaja Asif is one of the most trusted allies of the outgoing prime minister and considered the mostly likely to succeed him.
The former banker has held a series of key positions within the PML-N since 1991. He was elected to the National Assembly from his home district of Sialkot — an important manufacturing centre in Punjab province — since 1993.
He is viewed as a strong critic of the powerful military and commentators say that his hardline stance against the army has created problems for Sharif.

Sardar Ayaz Sadiq
The speaker of the National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq is another strong candidate for next prime minister who is said to have the ear of the ruling Sharif family.
Sadiq gained Sharif’s trust after he defeated the PML-N leader’s main rival, cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, in a hotly contested race for a Lahore seat in the 2013 general election.
Sadiq lost the seat two years later following allegations of vote rigging, only to be re-elected in a by-election, narrowly beating another close aide of Khan. He was restored as the speaker after his re-election.
Sadiq began his political career as a supporter of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf party, but quit to contest the 2002 elections on a PML-N ticket.

Ahsan Iqbal
A US-educated lawmaker, Ahsan Iqbal hails from a political family that has long been associated with Sharif’s PML-N party.
Iqbal is considered the development brains of the party and a visionary leader.
He currently heads the federal planning and development ministry, having previously served as minister for education and minorities. He has also worked as deputy chairman of the Planning Commission from 1998 to 1999 during Sharif’s second term.

Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, a stalwart of the PML-N, was until recently considered the prime candidate to succeed Sharif.
But relations between the two have recently cooled, with some sources suggesting that Sharif is concerned that the vocal Nisar could be positioning himself to wrest control of the party from the embattled prime minister.
Speculation this week that he could be about to resign his seat has heightened the intrigue surrounding his relationship with Sharif.
Unlike Sharif’s other key allies, Nisar has close ties with the powerful military, often serving as broker between the two — a relationship that would serve Nisar well if he decided to make an independent bid for the top office.

Topics: Pakistan Nawaz Sharif

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Rival protests in Seoul over South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol

Updated 8 sec ago
Reuters
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Rival protests in Seoul over South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol

  • Yoon Suk Yeol’s presidential powers are suspended but he remains in office
  • He has not complied with various summonses by authorities investigating whether martial law
Updated 8 sec ago
Reuters
SEOUL: Demonstrators supporting and opposing South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol held rival protests several hundred meters apart in Seoul on Saturday, a week after he was impeached over his short-lived declaration of martial law.
Yoon’s presidential powers are suspended but he remains in office. He has not complied with various summonses by authorities investigating whether martial law, which he declared late on Dec. 3 and rescinded hours later, constituted insurrection.
He has also not responded to attempts to contact him by the Constitutional Court, which decides whether to remove him from office or restore his presidential powers. The court plans to hold its first preparatory hearing on Friday.
Saturday’s pro- and anti-Yoon protests were held in Gwanghwamun in the heart of the capital. There were no clashes as of 4 p.m. (0700 GMT).
Tens of thousands of anti-Yoon protesters, dominated by people in their 20s and 30s, gathered around 3 p.m., waving K-Pop light sticks and signs with sayings such as “Arrest! Imprison! Insurrection chief Yoon Suk Yeol” to catchy K-pop tunes.
“I wanted to ask Yoon how he could do this to a democracy in the 21st century, and I think if he really has a conscience, he should step down,” said 27-year-old Cho Sung-hyo.
Several thousand pro-Yoon protesters, chiefly older and more conservative people opposing Yoon’s removal and supporting the restoration of his powers, had gathered since around midday.
“These rigged (parliamentary) elections eat away at this country, and at the core are socialist communist powers, so about 10 of us came together and said the same thing — we absolutely oppose impeachment,” said Lee Young-su, a 62-year-old businessman.
Yoon had cited claims of election hacking and “anti-state” pro-North Korean sympathizers as justification for imposing the martial law, which the National Election Commission has denied.

Pakistan militant raid kills 16 soldiers: intelligence officials

Updated 50 min 36 sec ago
AFP
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Pakistan militant raid kills 16 soldiers: intelligence officials

  • Pakistani Taliban claim responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement it was staged ‘in retaliation for the martyrdom of our senior commanders’
Updated 50 min 36 sec ago
AFP

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan militants launched a brazen overnight raid on an army post near the Afghan border, two intelligence officials said Saturday, killing 16 soldiers and critically wounding five more.
“Over 30 militants attacked an army post” in the Makeen area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, one senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity. “Sixteen soldiers were martyred and five were critically injured in the assault.”
“The militants set fire to the wireless communication equipment, documents and other items present at the checkpoint,” he said, before retreating from the two-hour assault which took place 40 kilometers (24 miles) from the Afghan border.
A second intelligence official also anonymously confirmed the same toll of dead and wounded.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement it was staged “in retaliation for the martyrdom of our senior commanders.”

Topics: Pakistan

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Myanmar ethnic rebels say captured junta western command

Updated 21 December 2024
AFP
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Myanmar ethnic rebels say captured junta western command

  • Ann would be the second regional military command to fall to ethnic rebels in five months
  • Fighting has rocked Rakhine state since the Arakan Army attacked security forces in November last year
Updated 21 December 2024
AFP

BANGKOK: A Myanmar ethnic rebel group has captured a military regional command in Rakhine state, it said, in what would be a major blow to the junta.
The Arakan Army (AA) had “completely captured” the western regional command at Ann on Friday after weeks of fighting, the group said in a statement on its Telegram channel.
Ann would be the second regional military command to fall to ethnic rebels in five months, and a huge blow to the military.
Myanmar’s military has 14 regional commands across the country with many of them currently fighting established ethnic rebel groups or newer “People’s Defense Forces” that have sprung up to battle the military’s 2021 coup.
Fighting has rocked Rakhine state since the AA attacked security forces in November last year, ending a ceasefire that had largely held since the putsch.
AA fighters have seized swathes of territory in the state that is home to China and India-backed port projects and all but cut off state capital Sittwe.
The AA posted photos of a man whom it said was the Ann deputy regional commander, in the custody of its fighters.
AFP was unable to confirm that information and has contacted the AA’s spokesman for comment.
AFP was unable to reach people on the ground around Ann where Internet and phone services are patchy.
In decades of on-off fighting since independence from Britain in 1948 the military had never lost a regional military command until last August, when the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) captured the northeastern command in Lashio in Shan state.
Myanmar’s borderlands are home to myriad ethnic armed groups who have battled the military since independence for autonomy and control of lucrative resources.
Last month the UN warned Rakhine state was heading toward famine, as ongoing clashes squeeze commerce and agricultural production.
“Rakhine’s economy has stopped functioning,” the report from the UN Development Programme said, projecting “famine conditions by mid-2025” if current levels of food insecurity were left unaddressed.

Topics: Myanmar

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Joe Biden approves $571 million in defense support for Taiwan

Updated 21 December 2024
Reuters
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Joe Biden approves $571 million in defense support for Taiwan

  • The US is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties between Washington and Taipei
  • Taiwan went on alert last week in response to what it said was China’s largest massing of naval forces in three decades
Updated 21 December 2024
Reuters

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Friday agreed to provide $571.3 million in defense support for Taiwan, the White House said, while the State Department approved the potential sale to the island of $265 million worth of military equipment.
The United States is bound by law to provide Chinese-claimed Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties between Washington and Taipei, to the constant anger of Beijing.
Democratically governed Taiwan rejects China’s claims of sovereignty.
China has stepped up military pressure against Taiwan, including daily military activities near the island and two rounds of war games this year.
Taiwan went on alert last week in response to what it said was China’s largest massing of naval forces in three decades around Taiwan and in the East and South China Seas.
Biden had delegated to the secretary of state the authority “to direct the drawdown of up to $571.3 million in defense articles and services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training, to provide assistance to Taiwan,” the White House said in a statement without providing details.
Taiwan’s defense ministry thanked the United States for its “firm security guarantee,” saying in a statement the two sides would continue to work closely on security issues to ensure peace in the Taiwan Strait.
The Pentagon said the State Department had approved the potential sale to Taiwan of about $265 million worth of command, control, communications, and computer modernization equipment.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said the equipment sale would help upgrade its command-and-control systems.
Taiwan’s defense ministry also said on Saturday that the US government had approved $30 million of parts for 76 mm autocannon, which it said would boost the island’s capacity to counter China’s “grey-zone” warfare.

Topics: Joe Biden US Taiwan

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US Senate approves Social Security change despite fiscal concerns

Updated 21 December 2024
Reuters
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US Senate approves Social Security change despite fiscal concerns

  • The Senate in a 76-20 bipartisan vote shortly after midnight approved the Social Security Fairness Act
  • The House of Representatives last month approved the bill in a 327-75 vote
Updated 21 December 2024
Reuters

WASHINGTON: The US Congress early on Saturday passed a measure to boost Social Security retirement payments to some retirees who draw public pensions — such as former police and firefighters — which critics warned will further weaken the program’s finances.
The Senate in a 76-20 bipartisan vote shortly after midnight approved the Social Security Fairness Act, which would repeal two-decades-old provisions that can reduce benefits for people who also receive a pension.
The House of Representatives last month approved the bill in a 327-75 vote, which means that Senate approval sends it to Democratic President Joe Biden to sign into law. The White House did not immediately respond to a question about whether Biden intended to do so.
The bill will overturn a decades-old change to the program that had been made to limit federal benefits to some higher-earning workers with pensions. Over time, growing numbers of municipal employees such as firefighters and postal workers also saw their payments capped.
Most Americans do not participate in pension plans, which pay a defined benefit, and instead are dependent on what money they can save and Social Security. Just one in ten US private sector workers have pension plans, according to Labor Department data.
The new provisions impact about 3 percent of Social Security beneficiaries — totaling a little more than 2.5 million Americans — and the workers and retirees affected by these provisions are key constituencies for lawmakers and their powerful advocacy groups have pushed for a legislative fix.
Some of them could receive hundreds of dollars more a month in federal benefits as a result of the bill, retirement experts said.
Some federal budget experts warned the change could hurt the program’s already shaky finances as the bill’s price tag is approximately $196 billion over the next decade, according to an analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
Emerson Sprick, associate director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said in an interview, “the fact that there is such overwhelming support in Congress for exactly the opposite of what policy researchers agree on is pretty frustrating.”
Instead of scrapping the current formulas for determining retirement benefits for these workers, revisions have been floated, as well as more accurate communication from the Social Security Administration on how much money these public sector employees should expect.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan fiscal think tank, is also warning the extra cost will affect the program’s future.
“We are racing to our own fiscal demise,” the group’s president, Maya MacGuineas, said in a statement.
“It is truly astonishing that at a time when we are just nine years away from the trust fund for the nation’s largest program being completely exhausted, lawmakers are about to consider speeding that up by six months.”
Republican Senator Ted Cruz on the Senate floor on Wednesday said the bill as written will “throw granny over the cliff.”
“Every senator who votes to impose $200 billion dollars of cost on the Social Security Trust Fund, you are choosing to sacrifice the interest of seniors who paid into Social Security and who earned those benefits,” he said.
Bill supporters said Social Security’s future can be addressed at a later time.
Asked about the solvency implications pf this legislation, Senator Michael Bennet, a supporter of the bill, said: “Those are much longer term issues that we have to find a way to address together.”

Topics: US

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