Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf rejected calls to declare
emergency powers and wants elections to take place in Pakistan, a
spokesman said after widespread reports that the beleaguered leader
would opt for authoritarian rule.
Private television channels and newspapers had reported that
General Musharraf was poised to take a step that would probably
delay elections due by the turn of the year and could result in
restrictions on rights of assembly and place curbs on the
media.
"In the president's view, there is no need at present to impose
an emergency," Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani said.
"The president was under pressure from different political
parties to impose an emergency, but he believes in holding free and
fair election and is not in favor of any step that hinders it,"
Durrani added, without specifying which parties.
The ruling coalition parties have most to lose at the polls, and
Musharraf's own popularity has plunged since he vainly attempted to
oust the country's most senior judge.
A government spokesman had suggested the government could
justify emergency rule by citing mounting insecurity after a spate
of attacks - many of them suicide bombings - by Islamist militants
allied to the Taliban and Al-Qaida over the past month.
Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim Khan said the measure
could be warranted by the situation in tribal areas and North West
Frontier Province, and by comments from US politicians that America
should be prepared to strike inside Pakistan if it possessed
actionable intelligence on Al-Qaida or Taliban targets.
But analysts and opposition leaders feared Musharraf might use
emergency powers to overcome constitutional difficulties he faces
in getting re-elected by the sitting assemblies while still army
chief, and to stave off parliamentary elections due by the turn of
the year.
Musharraf had planned to get re-elected in uniform between
mid-September and mid-October before national and provincial
assemblies are dissolved for parliamentary elections due in
December or January.
He commands the simple majority needed to win re-election in the
current assemblies, but there is a strong possibility that
constitutional challenges could be upheld by a Supreme Court that
delivered a momentous decision on July 20 to reinstate the chief
justice who Musharraf had spent four months trying to sack.
US President George W. Bush yesterday urged Musharraf to hold
free and fair elections.
"My focus in terms of the domestic scene there is that he have a
free and fair election, and that's what we've been talking to him
about and hopeful they will," Bush said at a White House news
conference.
(China Daily via agencies August 10, 2007)
