Pakistani national elections will take place before February 15,
President Pervez Musharraf said yesterday, after Western allies and
opponents had demanded polls be held on time and emergency rule
scrapped.
Pakistani lawyers
shouting anti-Musharraf slogans during a demonstration in
Islamabad. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has announced that
elections will be held before Feb. 15 and confirmed his pledge to
quit as army chief, state media said.
"There is no doubt in my mind that elections should be held on
time, as soon as possible," Musharraf told official media after
chairing a meeting of the National Security Council.
"It was my commitment and I am fulfilling it."
General Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless 1999 coup,
added he would quit the military and be sworn in as a civilian
president once the Supreme Court rules whether he was eligible to
stand for re-election last month while still army chief.
Musharraf's announcement came just hours after US President
George W. Bush called him for the first time since Saturday's
announcement, urging him to hold elections and quit as army
chief.
"My message was ... You can't be the president and the head of
the military at the same time," Bush told a news conference.
Washington had been quietly encouraging Bhutto and Musharraf to
share power after the polls, wanting to see another
progressive-minded politician alongside him to carry the fight
against Al-Qaida and the Taliban.
"We think it is a good thing that President Musharraf has
clarified the election date for the Pakistani people," White House
spokeswoman Dana Perino said yesterday.
It remains to be seen whether Musharraf can control events set
in train by his shock decision last Saturday to declare emergency
rule, suspend the constitution, sack most of the country's judges
and round up the majority of the opposition leadership, and anyone
else deemed troublesome.
Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, who has thrown down the
gauntlet by threatening to lead mass protests, said Musharraf
needed to do more. She said Musharraf should release detained
judges and let "the real Supreme Court" decide on challenges to his
re-election.
Lawyers have led protests and are boycotting the courts. But so
far the political opposition has not shown its street power.
(China Daily November 9, 2007)
