Musharraf: coup rumours 'absolute nonsense'

PAKISTAN: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf Monday rejected rumours of a coup which were sparked by a nationwide blackout and further fuelled by a medical check-up that he underwent in the United States.

Speculation about a takeover spread like wildfire across Pakistan by text message and telephone on Sunday, with General Musharraf, who himself grabbed power from a civilian government in 1999, being out of the country. "These reports are absolute nonsense and thank God we are not a banana republic," Musharraf was quoted as telling reporters in New York by the state-run Associated Press Of Pakistan.

"We are a normal, stable country," he added. Key US ally Musharraf, 63, also said he had been declared "very fit" by doctors who performed what he described as a routine heart and general check during a visit to Texas on Saturday.

A friend who is a doctor had recommended the test because he had not had one for 12 years, he added.

The coup rumours began on Sunday shortly after Pakistan suffered its worst power cut in five years, leaving most of the country's 150 million people without electricity for many hours. In Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and the worst hit by the outage, protesters burned tyres on the streets and pelted stones at vehicles and electricity company offices, witnesses said. Officials quickly ruled out sabotage as a cause of the blackout, but newspaper offices and journalists were deluged with telephone calls from concerned members of the public about a possible coup.

Concern also grew because the power failure briefly interrupted state television one of the first institutions to be seized during Musharraf's own coup seven years ago and private stations. Pakistani officials attempted to play down the situation by issuing anonymous denials but ministers were later wheeled out to squash them publicly.

Musharraf is currently in the United States where he met US President George W. Bush in Washington for talks on the "war on terror" and also addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Islamabad, Monday, AFP