ISLAMABAD, 10 August 2007 — President Gen. Pervez Musharraf yesterday decided against declaring a state of emergency in the country and instead will press ahead with plans to hold free and fair elections.
Political circles were abuzz with speculation that Musharraf would impose a state of emergency in his bid to stay in power. Musharraf met yesterday with legal experts, security officials and officials from the ruling party, a presidential aide said on condition of anonymity.
After speaking to Musharraf by telephone, apparently after those meetings, Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani said the president was committed to holding free and fair elections.
“There were suggestions from the ruling coalition and also from certain other political entities that there is a requirement of emergency in the country. But these suggestions were obviously discussed and ultimately it was decided that this is not the time,” Durrani said.
But at a news conference, leaders of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Qaid) said their party would not support the president if he were to declare emergency. Both party President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Secretary-General Syed Mushahid Hussain were categorical in their statements that the party was opposed to such a step.
Mushahid Hussain in fact blamed “those who advised the president to send a reference against the chief justice” for suggesting the imposition of emergency. “We will oppose such a step,” he said.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz acknowledged he had discussed the possibility with Musharraf. “We have reviewed the matter, the president and myself, and at the time being we do not see the need for such action,” Aziz told a news conference.
Musharraf has suffered dwindling support and his standing has been badly shaken by a failed bid to oust the country’s chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry — an independent-minded judge likely to rule on expected legal challenges to Musharraf’s bid for re-election from lawmakers by mid-October. Tariq Azim, deputy information minister, said earlier yesterday that a state of emergency could not be ruled out because of “external and internal threats” and deteriorating security in Pakistan’s volatile northwest near the Afghan border. More than 360 people have died during a wave of suicide attacks and clashes between militants and security forces that began with a bloody army assault on a pro-Taleban mosque in Islamabad in early July. The government’s acknowledgment that the possibility was under discussion appeared to deepen the sense of crisis surrounding the military ruler, who took power in a 1999 coup.
US President George W. Bush 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.
Bush said he and Musharraf had discussed and agreed on the need to go after the militants. “I have made it clear to him that I would expect there to be full cooperation in sharing intelligence and I believe we’ve got good intelligence sharing,” Bush said.
— Additional input from agencies
