Sharif poised to form government after Pakistan poll

By Michael Georgy and John Chalmers

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Toppled in a 1999 coup, jailed and exiled, Nawaz Sharif has made a triumphant election comeback and on Sunday was heading for a third term as Pakistan's prime minister.

The polls were a landmark, marking the first time one elected government was to replace another in a country vulnerable to military takeovers.

But Saturday's vote failed to realize the hopes of many that dynastic politics would end after years of misrule and corruption in the strategic U.S. ally.

Sharif, 63, a wealthy steel magnate from the pivotal Punjab province, held off a challenge from former cricket star Imran Khan who had hoped to break decades of dominance by Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), led by the Bhutto family.

Khan's Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) put up a strong fight and he is likely to remain a force in politics.

"Nawaz's victory says two things about Pakistan: one, the people of Pakistan prefer the comfort of status quo over the uncertainty of revolutions; and two, all roads to the center go through Punjab, and in Punjab, people are right-leaning and conservative," said senior journalist Nusrat Javeed.

"Still, for a party that only really arrived on the political scene in a serious way two years ago, PTI's performance was remarkable, to say the least."

Sharif declared victory in a jubilant speech to supporters. On Sunday, television channels said results so far showed that the PML-N had captured 84 seats of the 272 National Assembly seats that were contested.

The PTI had secured 19 seats while the PPP, which led the government for the past five years, won 11.

Sharif, a religious conservative, has said the army, which has ruled the country for more than half of its turbulent history, should stay out of politics.

But he will have to work with Pakistan's generals, who set foreign and security policy and manage the nuclear-armed country's difficult relationship with the United States as NATO troops withdraw from neighboring Afghanistan in 2014.

Sharif also believes Pakistan should reconsider its support for the U.S. war on Islamist militancy, which has earned the country billions of dollars in aid.

Despite pre-poll violence and attacks on Saturday that killed at least 17 people, millions turned out to vote.

Sharif's party may not have enough seats to rule on its own and may be forced into a coalition, which could make it difficult to push reforms needed to revive the economy.

Sharif, who advocates free-market economics, is likely to pursue privatization and deregulation to revive flagging growth. He has said Pakistan should stand on its own two feet but may need to seek a another bailout from the International Monetary Fund to avoid a balance of payments crisis.

Sharif will have to ease widespread discontent over endemic corruption, chronic power cuts and crumbling infrastructure. He has described Pakistan as a "mess".

Cricketing hero Khan in the end did not have the momentum needed to trip up Sharif despite his popularity among urban youths, many of whom were voting for the first time in an election that saw a robust turnout of 60 percent.

They had rallied behind Khan's calls for an end to graft and a halt to U.S. drone strikes against suspected militants on Pakistani soil, widely seen as a violation of sovereignty.

BLOODY ELECTION DAY

A string of bomb blasts marred election day, with one attack on a party office in the southern city of Karachi killing 11 people and wounding about 40.

Pakistan's Taliban, who are close to al Qaeda, have killed more than 125 people in election-related violence since April. The group, which is fighting to topple the government, regards the poll as un-Islamic.

Despite Pakistan's history of coups, the army stayed out of politics during the five years of the last government and threw its support behind Saturday's election.

However, some fear the military could step back in if there were a repeat of the incompetence and corruption that frustrated many Pakistanis during the last government.

Sharif, who was toppled in a 1999 bloodless coup by former army chief Pervez Musharraf, may take steps to improve ties with Pakistan's arch-enemy, India. Efforts to boost trade between the neighbors have stalled due to suspicion on both sides.

If Sharif is forced into a coalition, he may look to Islamist parties to cobble together a majority in parliament.

On top of the 272 contested seats, a further 70 - most reserved for women and members of non-Muslim minorities - are allocated to parties on the basis of their performance in the constituencies. To have a majority of the total of 342, the government would need 172 seats.

(Additional reporting by Mehreen Zahra-Malik and Katharine Houreld in ISLAMABAD, Gul Yousafzai in QUETTA, Mubasher Bukhari in LAHORE and Jibran Ahmed in PESHAWAR; Editing by Nick Macfie)

View the original article here

Analysis: Supreme Court seems poised to avoid same-sex marriage tide

By Joan Biskupic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For nearly four years, proponents of same-sex marriage have been strategically building a test case aimed at convincing the conservative-leaning Supreme Court to declare that gay marriage is a constitutional right. The advocates felt they were ready.

But on Tuesday, after an intense, wide-ranging hearing, it appeared the justices were not.

Over the course of the 80-minute session, it seemed that for the array of gay rights supporters across the country, neither their greatest hopes nor worst fears would be realized.

A majority of the justices suggested by their comments and questions that they were not prepared to rule on whether a fundamental right exists for gays and lesbians to marry. Some justices even suggested that the specific case before them, testing the validity of a 2008 California ballot initiative that defined marriage as only between a man and woman, might not be resolved on the merits.

The justices return to the bench on Wednesday for the narrower question of whether the federal government may deny benefits to married same-sex couples that are allowed their opposite-sex counterparts.

The court has several options on how it might resolve that case, from a finding that the Republican-dominated congressional group defending the law lacks "legal standing," resulting in dismissal, to a decision striking down the provision and robustly declaring that all laws tied to sexual orientation deserve tough judicial scrutiny.

That latter stance could eventually pave the way for gay marriage laws nationwide, well beyond the nine states and District of Columbia that now allow it. But from the tone of arguments on Tuesday, a majority would likely resist that route.

Justices across the ideological spectrum suggested they wanted to tread a cautious path in the cases that have become the most closely watched of the term.

The white marble and crimson velvet courtroom was crowded with nearly 400 spectators, some of whom had waited since last Thursday, in snow and rain, for seats. The paired cases have drawn a record number of "friend of the court" briefs and become the occasion for near daily declarations in support of gay marriage from public figures and prominent organizations.

'UNCHARTED WATERS'

Yet the justices do not seem ready for a role on centerstage in the matter. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal, questioned whether the issue should percolate a little longer in the states. Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative, asserted that the notion of same-sex marriage was newer than today's ubiquitous cellphones and perhaps not ready for judicial intervention. And Justice Anthony Kennedy, the usual swing vote, likened the court's possible journey in the case to going into "uncharted waters" or even over "a cliff."

If the court avoids the looming question about a fundamental right, it could disappoint the two main lawyers pushing for same-sex marriage - Theodore Olson, who argued Tuesday, and David Boies, the legal partner who sat at his side. Yet, it would also mean that the worst-case scenario envisioned by other gay rights supporters would be avoided, too.

Their concern was certainly understandable. The Supreme Court's past cases on gay rights in narrower contexts, in 1996 and 2003, were vigorously fought. Four of the current nine justices are new to the gay rights issue. The bench is not as predictable as in the past, and overall, because Alito replaced Sandra Day O'Connor in 2006, the court may be more conservative on social policy.

So in May 2009, when Olson and Boies, former opponents from the 2000 presidential election case of Bush v. Gore, suddenly filed their challenge to Proposition 8, many gay rights activists and leaders expressed concern. Advocates who had been concentrating their efforts in the states worried that a federal case could backfire with a decision upholding Proposition 8 and declaring no constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

But that outcome now seems unlikely. While Supreme Court justices sometimes reverse course from the tone of arguments, it seems no major constitutional ruling will emerge from the California case of Hollingsworth v. Perry.

Justices on the right and left questioned whether proponents of Proposition 8, who took up its defense after California officials declined, have legal standing.

"Have we ever granted standing to proponents of ballot initiatives?" Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked lawyer Charles Cooper, representing Proposition 8 supporters. Cooper said no but stressed that California's Supreme Court had ruled that under state law the backers of Proposition 8 should be allowed to defend it.

Chief Justice John Roberts voiced doubt, saying that "a state can't authorize anyone to proceed in federal court," because federal judges themselves determine who may bring claims.

LEGAL STANDING

Yet these questions of legal standing were in the case when the appeal from Proposition 8 supporters arrived on the Supreme Court's doorstep last year. And the court nonetheless took the appeal. It requires only four of the nine justices to accept a case for oral arguments; it takes five to resolve it.

Perhaps the thorny procedural hurdles became more obvious as the justices prepared for Tuesday's hearing. Or, perhaps that area might be the only one of common ground. There appeared to be no majority for either side's constitutional assertions.

Cooper argued that the states may limit marriage to heterosexual couples because of their interest in procreation and child rearing. Justice Elena Kagan, particularly, hammered at that notion, asking whether the court could block an older couple, possibly beyond their fertile years, from marrying.

Olson argued that Proposition 8 "walls off gays and lesbians from marriage," the most important relationship they might have. Roberts expressed doubt that California was plainly excluding a particular group. "When the institution of marriage developed historically, people didn't get around and say 'let's have this institution, but let's keep out homosexuals.' The institution developed to serve purposes that, by their nature, didn't include homosexual couples."

Justice Antonin Scalia, who has been the most outspoken opponent of gay rights on this court, challenged Olson to say exactly when same-sex marriage became the constitutional norm.

Olson could not but rather asserted: "It was constitutional when we as a culture determined that sexual orientation is a characteristic of individuals that they cannot control. There is no specific date in time. This is an evolutionary cycle."

(Reporting by Joan Biskupic; Editing by Eric Effron and Eric Beech)

View the original article here

Fitch poised to cut UK's AAA rating soon

By Christina Fincher and Daniel Bases

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Britain looked poised to lose its AAA rating from a second ratings agency after Fitch Ratings warned on Friday it was likely to downgrade the country in the coming weeks, citing high government debt levels and weak growth.

A month since Britain was downgraded by Moody's, Fitch put the country on review and said a downgrade was a heightened possibility. A decision is due by the end of April, Fitch said in a statement.

Sterling fell sharply, dropping half a cent against the dollar.

The review announcement comes hard on the heels of the government's annual budget this week, which halved Britain's growth forecast for this year and raised borrowing projections.

The move by Fitch was not unexpected but will be another setback for Chancellor George Osborne. He has staked his reputation on repairing Britain's public finances and had promised to protect its triple-A rating.

Britain's finance ministry, which is three years into an austerity plan, said Fitch's announcement showed "there are no easy answers to problems built up over many years".

"But we are, slowly but surely, fixing our country's economic problems," a Treasury spokesman said, citing a reduction by one third of the budget deficit and the creation of 1.25 million jobs since the government took office in 2010.

The opposition Labour Party blames the deficit on too much austerity and says measures to promote growth would fix the deficit more effectively.

Fitch first warned that Britain's rating was under threat in March 2012 when it noted debt levels were already "significantly above the AAA median" and the government had very limited room for manoeuvre.

Since then, the economic outlook has deteriorated, pushing the government's deficit-reduction strategy further off course.

Osborne's budget statement on Wednesday included a halving of estimated economic growth this year to just 0.6 percent.

With the Moody's downgrade last month, it joined the United States and France in having lost its top-notch rating from at least one major agency.

Standard & Poor's rates Britain as AAA but cut the outlook on that rating to negative last December, implying a one in three chance of a downgrade.

(Additional reporting by Luciana Lopez and Pam Niimi in New York; writing by William Schomberg and Peter Griffiths in London; editing by Ron Askew)

View the original article here