Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani today angrily denied a growing number of media reports that President Asif Ali Zardari was facing yet another of his endless clashes with the Supreme Court regarding longstanding graft charges against him and other members of his government.
“There is no possibility of a clash between the state institutions,” insisted Gilani, adding that the Pakistani Constitution obliges people to believe his word over the word of the press and that to do otherwise was an “insult to the stature of the prime minister.”
Pakistan’s executive branch has faced a growing clash with the Supreme Court since the restoration of Chief Justice Chaudry at the end of the Long March, and the courts stripped the government’s officials of blanket immunity in December.
The clash has occasionally flared up and there seems to be little reason, other than the word of Gilani, to believe that it won’t flare up again, as neither side has resolved the ongoing question of officials serving in high ranking positions while refusing to appear in court for criminal charges.