ISLAMABAD, 15 December 2007 — Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf yesterday amended the constitution to further legitimize his emergency rule, a day before lifting the state of emergency in the country, officials said.

Musharraf issued a constitutional amendment order late Friday which exempt him from getting parliamentary ratification for imposition of Nov. 3 emergency rule, Attorney General Malik Mohammad Qayyum told AFP.

“The amendments relate to presidential election procedure, others are related to establishment of Islamabad High Court, oath of judges and pension benefits to judges who refused to take oath,” Qayyum said, also referring to Musharraf’s earlier decision to handpick judges.

“Whatever amendments are made in the constitution do not need ratification from the Parliament,” he said.

“The emergency will be lifted before 1.00pm on Saturday,” Qayyum said.

This is the second time that Musharraf has amended the constitution since he imposed emergency rule on Nov. 3.

“The new order reinforces the earlier one,” Qayyum added.

On Nov. 21 Musharraf issued the first order to amend the constitution to stipulate that imposition of emergency “is declared to have been validly made” and “shall not be called in question in any court or forum on any ground whatsoever.”

All other decisions made in relation to emergency rule “shall... be deemed to be and always to have been validly made,” added the earlier order.

Musharraf will address the nation live on television and radio today after lifting the emergency rule he imposed on Nov. 3, his spokesman said yesterday.

Musharraf drew international criticism for imposing a state of emergency as he faced a raft of legal challenges to his October re-election, a move that saw thousands of people rounded up and put in jail. “The president will address the nation after lifting the emergency,” spokesman Rashid Qureshi told AFP. He declined to give details of Musharraf’s speech. The Associated Press of Pakistan said Musharraf would address the nation at 8:00 p.m.

Musharraf will lift the emergency today but critics say that with only three weeks left to campaign for parliamentary elections, and dozens of those arrested still in detention, the move will make little practical difference. With Jan. 8 parliamentary elections only weeks away, restrictions on media and the judiciary still stacked the cards in favor of Musharraf and his caretaker government, opposition members and political analysts said.

Under international pressure, including from his ally the United States, Musharraf said he would restore the constitution in a move that Western countries hope will bring stability to a nuclear-armed state facing growing militant violence.

“The lifting is just an ornamental thing,” said Khawaja Harris, a senior lawyer working with opposition leader and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

“In the meantime, Musharraf has set the rules of the game and everything he wanted to install is already in place.”

Several judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who were deposed by Musharraf are still being held under house arrest. The Pakistani media criticized this week a ban on live broadcasts as an attempt to control election coverage.

That will not change after the end of the emergency, political commentators say.

Election monitors say the caretaker administration, from the central government to district level, can fix the result and Sharif and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s opposition parties have said the government has the power to rig votes.

Critics say Musharraf, who stepped down as army chief last month, faces pressure to avoid losing because an opposition-run Parliament could move to impeach him over accusations he acted unconstitutionally in securing a new term as president.

“The detention of lawyers, the absence of a level-playing field and the ability of the Election Commission to enforce a code of ethics will not change,” said political analyst Nasim Zehra. The election is essentially a three-way battle between parties loyal to Musharraf and the parties of two main opposition leaders, former prime ministers Benazir and Sharif.

Sharif, who has been barred from standing because of past criminal convictions he says were politically motivated, released his manifesto yesterday and called for the restoration of sacked judges and the elimination of the military from politics.