Islamabad, Jan 01: General Pervez Musharraf today won a vote of confidence from Parliament and four provincial assemblies of Pakistan, giving legitimacy his presidency until 2007 amid protest from mainstream opposition parties.
The 100-member senate voted 56-1 while the National Assembly voted 191-0 to give Musharraf the trust vote following his deal with Muttahida Majlis-e Amal (MMA) alliance under which the six-party Islamic coalition agreed to support his presidency and constitutional amendments in exchange for his stepping down as the army chief by December 2004.
However, MMA preferred to abstain from the voting, neither supporting nor opposing it.
The four provincial assemblies of Baluchistan, North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Sindh and Punjab also voted in favour of Musharraf, who toppled the Nawaz Sharif government in a bloodless coup of 1999.
A large number of opposition members in Parliament and the state legislatures either staged walk-out in protest or abstained from voting.
Declaring the result of national assembly, Justice Ahmed Khan Leshari of the Election Commission was quoted as saying that "no members are against the resolution; 58 members abstained from voting out of a total of 341 members."
Musharraf won the trust vote three days ahead of the Saarc Summit which would be attended by seven-member regional grouping's heads of state and government, including Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Bureau Report
