ISLAMABAD, 15 November 2007 — Pakistan’s Election Commission met yesterday to finalize arrangements for the parliamentary vote that President Pervez Musharraf has promised to hold before Jan. 9, officials said.

Opposition parties have threatened to boycott the election, saying it will be meaningless if it is held under a state of emergency that Musharraf declared on Nov. 3.

“The meeting chaired by Chief Election Commissioner Qazi Mohammad Farooq discussed the election schedule and all election-related matters,” commission spokesman Gul Akbar told AFP.

An announcement of the date for the polls would not come until after the dissolution of the federal Parliament today and, on Nov. 20, that of Pakistan’s four provincial assemblies, he said.

The Election Commission’s secretary, Kanwar Dilshad, said the meeting discussed arrangements to hold the election in a “free, fair and transparent manner.” Former Premier Benazir Bhutto has said her party, Pakistan’s largest opposition grouping, may boycott the polls, echoing threats by other parties that are against Musharraf.

The opposition parties, meanwhile, tried to forge a united front yesterday against Musharraf as the president insisted a state of emergency he imposed this month was necessary for fair elections.

“We are ready to set aside our differences with the People’s Party,” former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told Reuters by telephone. Benazir also contacted old rivals including Islamist alliance leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed, cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, whom police detained yesterday, and Sharif’s party to urge a “coalition of interests,” party officials said. “She’s trying to unite all political parties on a minimum agenda to return the country to true democracy,” said Latif Khosa, a senator and aide to Benazir.

“The minimum agenda is the ouster of Gen. Musharraf and formation of a neutral government of national consensus to organize free and fair elections,” Khosa said.

Sharif and Benazir were bitter rivals during the late 1980s and 1990s, both serving two terms as prime minister, alternating with each other until Musharraf ousted Sharif in 1999. Both Benazir and Sharif faced corruption charges.

Musharraf, under pressure from allies to put the country back on a path to democracy, said at the weekend the general elections would take place but he would not say when the constitution would be restored or the emergency lifted.

US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who last week warned against cutting aid to an “indispensable” ally, is due in Pakistan late this week to urge Musharraf to end the emergency.

But Musharraf has repeatedly defended the emergency. “In an environment marked by terrorism and suicide attacks, the state of emergency was necessary for the holding of peaceful, free and honest elections,” he told Le Monde yesterday.

Switzerland Suspends Arms Exports

The Swiss government said yesterday it was temporarily suspending arms exports to Pakistan in light of the political crisis engulfing the country.

Pakistan is still awaiting delivery of some 15 anti-aircraft batteries and ammunition, after Switzerland’s Federal Council approved the sale of 21 such systems for a total of 136 million Swiss francs ($121 million) last December.

The economy ministry said that the first six systems had already been delivered at a cost of around 38 million Swiss francs.