ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — As Pakistan’s ruling coalition government got off to a new start Tuesday, a day after the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf, political disagreements and a bomb that killed at least 26 people in the country’s volatile northwest underlined the challenges faced by the new government.
The heads of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League-N faction met in the capital of Islamabad for the second day of talks on the next steps after nearly nine years of military rule. Asif Ali Zardari of the People’s Party and his counterpart, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, appeared to be at a new impasse over how and whether to restore some 60 judges deposed under Musharraf’s government.
Musharraf stepped down Monday, nearly nine years after he mounted a bloodless military coup that ended Sharif’s second term as prime minister of Pakistan.
As congratulations poured in to leaders in Islamabad from across the country after Musharraf’s ouster, signs of the enormous security challenges faced by the government seemed to be on the rise. Thousands of refugees from Pakistan’s fractious tribal areas were pouring into the northwest city of Peshawar and other cities, displaced by nearly two weeks of skirmishes between soldiers and Islamic insurgents in the Bajur tribal agency. About 200,000 people have been forced from their homes due to the violence.
At least 26 people were killed and 35 injured after a suicide bomber set off a blast near the gates of a hospital in the northwest town of Dera Ismail Khan. Area police chief Malik Naveed said the explosion occurred as dozens of relatives and friends of a man recently shot dead near the hospital gathered to protest his killing.
Pakistan’s coalition leaders said they plan to meet again Friday.
