ISLAMABAD, 28 September 2007 — The chief justice of Pakistan yesterday ordered the government to free at least 100 opposition leaders and workers who were arrested over the weekend to prevent protests against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Musharraf, meanwhile filed nomination papers to run for president on Oct. 6 even as the Supreme Court prepared to rule on the army chief’s eligibility to stand.
Late yesterday, the All Parties Democratic Movement, an alliance of opposition parties, decided its lawmakers will resign their seats in provincial assemblies and Parliament, a move that would deprive the presidential poll of credibility.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who became an opposition icon after Musharraf tried and failed to sack him in March, gave the order for the release of the detained opposition leaders after summoning officials to the Supreme Court.
The activists were detained after they vowed to hold demonstrations against Musharraf’s plan to run for president. Those to be freed include Javed Hashmi, the acting chief of exiled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League party, and several key leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami.
The detentions have sparked sharp criticism, including from the United States, Musharraf’s biggest international ally. The government has defended the arrests as necessary to maintain law and order.
Ameerul Azeem, a spokesman for the opposition Muttaheda Majlis-e-Amal, called the order “good news” for the more than 600 MMA leaders and workers that he said were arrested.
“The Supreme Court order gives us hope and a slap in the face of the government, but still I am doubtful that all our workers would be released,” he said.
A bench of nine judges is due to deliver a ruling today that could have far reaching consequences for Pakistan’s transition to greater democracy, eight years after Musharraf took power in a coup.
Pakistan faces months of uncertainty as Musharraf tries to keep control of a nuclear-armed country whose support for the United States is seen as crucial to the success of Western efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and battle Al-Qaeda.
If the court blocks Musharraf’s re-election, analysts say he might impose emergency rule or dissolve Parliament and seek a mandate as a civilian from assemblies after a general election.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz went to the Election Commission, along with some of the other 16 legislators who endorsed Musharraf’s candidacy, to file the general’s nomination papers.
Mushahid Hussain, secretary-general of Musharraf’s ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q party, was confident Musharraf would win the Oct. 6 vote by federal and provincial legislators despite critics who say he cannot run while remaining army chief.
“We have enough support for the victory,” Mushahid Hussain said.
Another 42 candidates also submitted their candidacies. Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) fielded its senior leader Makhdum Amin Fahim for the highest office, while lawyers associations nominated a retired judge of the Sindh High Court, Justice Wajeehuddin, for the post.
Pakistani authorities clamped tight security on the capital for the filing of Musharraf’s nomination papers, including blocking all roads into the capital.
Chief Justice Chaudhry expressed annoyance over the blockade and asked officials to “to name the authority on whose orders action was taken,” a police official said.
“The administration offered an unconditional apology before the court for blocking the road,” he said.
— Additional input from agencies
