Pakistani President Fires Premier After Power Duel

President Ghulam Ishaq Khan struck back at political opponents Sunday, dissolving Parliament and firing the prime minister who had waged a two-month campaign to weaken presidential powers.

Ishaq Khan appointed a military-supported caretaker government and said elections will be held within 90 days.

No unrest was reported. But soldiers under the president’s command guarded the national radio and television station, the Parliament house and the central telegraph office.

In Lahore and Karachi, opponents of outgoing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif honked their horns and cheered the news. Some businessmen, however, were concerned that his ouster would disrupt his free-market reforms.

Sharif accused Ishaq Khan of acting unconstitutionally and “depriving the people of their elected government.” A senior member of his ousted Cabinet said Sharif would contest the dismissal in court.

On Saturday, Sharif appeared on television to accuse the president of plotting his overthrow. The president countered by accusing Sharif of corruption, nepotism and terrorizing his political opponents.

The nation’s top two leaders began struggling for supremacy in February, after Sharif threatened to try to curb the president’s power, particularly the right to dissolve the National Assembly and the four provincial legislatures and appoint the military chief of staff.

The president is elected by the National Assembly and by the provincial legislatures, which were not disbanded by the order.

Although Ishaq Khan supported Sharif’s economic reforms privatizing state-owned industries, on Sunday he accused the prime minister of manipulating the reforms for his own profit.

The prime minister’s government was in office 30 months, and it was the third in five years to be dismissed.

Despite the precautionary troop deployment, Ishaq Khan refrained from declaring a state of emergency as he had 2 1/2 years ago when he sacked the government of Benazir Bhutto.

Four senior military commanders arrived at the president’s office Sunday for the swearing in of the caretaker administration, headed by Balakh Sher Mazari.

Mazari, 70, the head of a huge tribal clan of landowners, is a low-profile politician who has been affiliated at different times with both major parties, most recently with Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League.