ISLAMABAD Pakistans ruling coalition has finished its deliberations on impeachment charges against embattled President Pervez Musharraf, information minister Sherry Rehman said Friday.

The charge sheet will now go to coalition leaders Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif within the next three days for final approval, she said.

“The charge sheet deliberations are complete. We have presented it to the law minister,” she told reporters after a coalition committee spent more than a week debating the charges.

“Then it will be presented to the leadership, probably on Sunday or Monday, after which we can take it to the house,” she said, referring to the national assembly or lower house of parliament.

The coalition announced on August 7 that it intended to impeach Musharraf, the first time such a step has been taken in Pakistans 61-year history.

Newspaper reports said he would resign rather than face impeachment, most probably before the charges are lodged with parliament, but a presidential spokesman denied that Musharraf planned to quit. Allies of Musharraf and coalition officials have said the presidents aides are in talks with the government to try to avoid impeachment.

Pakistans constitution says that once the charges are filed the national assembly speaker has three days to pass them to the president. Musharraf then has two weeks in which to respond, after which there will be a vote on impeachment, which can only be passed by a two-thirds combined majority in the upper and lower houses of parliament.

The coalition piled further pressure on Musharraf when lawmakers in southwestern Baluchistan province overwhelmingly approved a no-confidence motion in him, following similar votes in the other three provinces.