ISLAMABAD, 11 June 2007 — Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said he would be seeking re-election in uniform.

In an interview with Al-Arabia TV channel — the excerpts of which were carried by media yesterday — Musharraf ruled out any deal with former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto or with her party Pakistan People’s Party. He said he had won the election in uniform, and would again contest it in uniform.

Musharraf is planning to get re-elected as Pakistan’s president in September or October, following which general elections for the National Assembly would be held.

Musharraf said that the elections would be as scheduled. Analysts and party officials say Musharraf is battling serious dissent within his own party, weakening a crucial cornerstone of the US-led “war on terror.”

The man who survived at least two Al-Qaeda assassination attempts stirred up a hornet’s nest when he suspended the country’s top judge, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, on March 9.

Opponents say he wanted to intimidate the judiciary before seeking re-election in uniform from the outgoing Parliament — despite the fact that the constitution says he should quit as army chief by the end of 2007. After trying to present a united front in the face of nationwide protests, newspapers reported this week that Musharraf had blasted members of his ruling party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q).

“I bluntly say you always leave me alone in times of trial and tribulation,” The News, a respected daily, quoted a “shaken” Musharraf as telling the members on Wednesday. He reportedly warned that without him, the country risked “Talebanization” by militants from the Pakistan-Afghan border.

But hours after he spoke, fresh divisions emerged when Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz abruptly suspended tough curbs on the media that Musharraf himself had introduced three days earlier.

Part of the problem, analysts say, lies in the ragtag origins of the PML-Q. To back him in 2002 elections, Musharraf gathered disaffected members from the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif, the premier he overthrew in a 1999 coup, and the Pakistan People’s Party of Benazir.

But the hybrid party is largely conservative and has failed to support some of Musharraf’s measures to tackle sexism and religious extremism. It now faces trouble in a general election expected late this year.

“The president is solely responsible for destroying the party. He never considered it important to seek its opinion,” Kabir Ali Wasti, a PML-Q leader, told AFP.

So far the party has held only a handful of rallies to support its embattled president after commandeering local buses to bring in supporters. Musharraf’s strongest backing has come from his allies in Karachi, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

“I have told the president there is no consultative process in the party. We need to regroup to survive,” said Farooq Amjad Mir, a PML-Q legislator from Lahore.

“Even on the judicial issue there was no parliamentary meeting called to work out a strategy in the face of the opposition and media onslaught.” Speculation has turned to the military, Musharraf’s ultimate powerbase. The army last month issued an unprecedented statement that it fully stood behind him.

“Other than the military which is duty-bound by discipline to support him, there are very few political forces behind Musharraf. He is a worried man now,” political analyst Shafqat Mahmood said.

But Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid, considered close to Musharraf, rubbished talk of disunity in the party.