This way out in Pakistan

Pakistan's political situation remained in flux Saturday when President Pervez Musharraf, the U.S.-backed leader who has lost popular support, tried to put an end to speculation today that he was planning to resign. Musharraf, the army general who took power in a 1999 coup but lost considerable power in February when his party was trounced in parliamentary elections, said he would not resign or go into exile as opposition leaders have urged. Opposition leaders who took control of Pakistan's parliament, including the former prime minister deposed in Musharraf's coup, have threatened to impeach Musharraf or to constitutionally restrict the power of the presidency. "I am not tendering resignation now," Musharraf told journalists at a briefing aired on all Pakistani news challenge, according to the Reuters international news service. "I will keep watching; I can't become a useless vegetable." journalists in a briefing later broadcast by all Pakistani news channels. The widower of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister assassinated when she returned from exile last year, who now leads the majority party in the ruling coalition, calls Musharraf a "relic of the past." His party, the Pakistan People's Party, has proposed a plan to restrict Musharraf's power. Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister who was deposed by Musharraf and exiled to India, is pushing a plan to impeach Musharraf or try him for treason.