Musharraf won't step down - spokesman

Pakistan's beleaguered President Pervez Musharraf will not resign, his spokesman said yesterday, as the ruling coalition prepared to launch a bid to impeach the prominent US ally.

Former army chief Gen. Musharraf has since early last year been at the centre of a political crisis that has raised fears for the stability of the nuclear-armed country on the front-line of the US-led campaign against militancy.

A coalition government led by the party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto announced on Thursday that it would impeach Gen. Musharraf for plunging Pakistan into a political and economic mess during his nearly nine-year rule.

Pro-government lawmakers yesterday passed a resolution in the assembly of Punjab, the country's biggest province, saying that Gen. Musharraf had lost the confidence of the people and should step down or face impeachment.

Similar resolutions will be passed in the remaining three provincial assemblies this week before an impeachment motion is filed in the National Assembly later this month.

Analysts said it could take several weeks before the motion is voted upon in the joint sitting of the two-chambered national Parliament.

There has been speculation in the media that the former commando would step down to avoid impeachment but his spokesman, retired Major General Rashid Qureshi, angrily dismissed that.

"There's no such thing. You'd better ask those who say he's going to resign," Mr Qureshi said.

Gen. Musharraf seized power in a 1999 coup and the driving force behind moves to oust him now has for months been Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister ousted in 1999 and leader of the second-biggest party in the coalition.