Musharraf announces polls in Pakistan by Jan 9

Pakistan's military ruler General Pervez Musharraf announced Sunday that general elections would be held by January 9 while the national and provincial legislatures would be dissolved on November 15 and 20 respectively but expressed inability to give a final date for lifting the state of emergency he imposed on November 3.

Addressing a press conference at the President House in Islamabad, Musharraf, who also holds post of the army chief, said he would quit the military and take oath as a civilian president after the Supreme Court gave ruling on petitions challenging his October 6 re-election. He hoped that the court would announce its verdict at the earliest.

The military general, who is under pressure from the opposition political parties and foreign countries to put the country back on a path to democracy and announced last week the elections would be held by mid-February, said it was up to the Election Commission to decide on the date of the vote. However, he added, the polls were to be held within 60 days after the dissolution of the National Assembly on November 15. "We should have elections before the ninth of January," he said, pointing to the beginning of the mourning month possibly by January 9. "I very much hope it will be before the ninth of January."

Musharraf declined to say when the Constitution, suspended by him on November 3, would be restored or the emergency lifted. He claimed that the emergency reinforced the war against militancy and would ensure fair elections. "It will ensure also fair and transparent elections because we are not going to interfere in the process of the elections," he said.

A close of ally of US President George Bush in his war on terror, Musharraf said the politicians and activists arrested over the past week would be released to take part in the elections but nobody would be allowed to create anarchy in the name of democracy.

The Musharraf regime claims it detained around 2,500 people since the proclamation of emergency but Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party says 5,000 of its activists had been arrested whereas a number of leaders and activists of other opposition parties and lawyers have also been detained over the last week.

Since proclamation of emergency, the Pakistani regime has also removed most judges of the superior judiciary, saying the judiciary was interfering with governance and creating hurdles in the war against militancy.

However, political observers and diplomats say Musharraf imposed emergency to stop the top court of the country from giving unfavourable rulings on the petitions that challenged his re-election, promulgation of controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance and deportation of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on September 10 despite a court order to allow him return from exile.

Musharraf said interim governments would be set up as soon as the assemblies were dissolved. He said the history was going to be made because this was the first time that all the assemblies were to going to complete their terms.

With the imposition of emergency, the Pakistani regime also clamped ban on private television channels, inviting severe criticism from the national as well as foreign media. It also ordered three British journalists Saturday to leave Pakistan within 72 hours for an editorial Daily Telegraph newspaper that allegedly used an expletive in an allusion about Musharraf.

The world's biggest group representing journalists has condemned the Pakistani regime’s decision to expel three British reporters and said such acts would only encourage instability. "Banning international media and gagging local journalists will not solve problems," said Aidan White, General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, in a statement issued in Brussels.

On Saturday, the Independent Media Corporation and Bird Private Limited -- who own landing rights of satellite TV channels including Geo News, Geo Entertainment, Geo Super and Aag -- moved the High Court in port city of Karachi against ban on transmission of its broadcasts by Pakistani cable operators.

Also after imposition of emergency, the Pakistani regime has also amended the country’s Army Act of 1952 to initiate court martial proceedings against the persons accused of committing an offence against the armed forces of the country.