Musharraf to seek fresh presidential term from outgoing assemblies
PAKISTAN: Gen. Pervez Musharraf will seek election to another term as
president from Pakistan’s current legislature rather than wait until
after elections due by the end of the year, his prime minister said.
The remarks from Shaukat Aziz were the strongest sign yet that
Musharraf will snub opposition demands that he seek endorsement for
another presidential term only after parliamentary elections due at the
end of 2007.
Aziz told selected reporters on Sunday that Musharraf will go to
lawmakers in September or October to ask them for a new five-year term,
the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan reported Monday.
Aziz forecast that the general will secure a comfortable majority,
APP said. The upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections are a
key test of Musharraf’s pledge to restore Pakistan to democracy, eight
years after he seized power in a bloodless military coup.
Aziz’s remarks reinforce widely held expectations that Musharraf, a
key U.S. ally against al-Qaida and the Taliban, will try to stay on as
president.
However, opposition parties argue that the 2002 elections were so
flawed that a presidency running through 2012 will be legitimate only
with the backing of the incoming federal and provincial lawmakers.
The head of state is appointed by an electoral college made up of
both houses of parliament as well as the assemblies in Pakistan’s four
provinces.
Opposition politicians are also pressing Musharraf to give up his
post as army chief before he stands for a fresh presidential term.
Aziz said only that Musharraf would decide the matter “when the time
will come,” APP reported.
The elections are approaching just as Musharraf faces renewed
pressure to help halt Taliban attacks on NATO troops in neighboring
Afghanistan as well as harsh criticism at home over his suspension of
Pakistan’s top judge.
Musharraf has called on Pakistanis to vote for moderates and shun
extremists if they want the country to continue its rapid economic
development.
Talks between presidential envoys and representatives of former Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto have fueled speculation that her socially
liberal Pakistan Peoples Party could return to the government fold.
In return, officials could drop corruption cases that have kept
Bhutto out of Pakistan since 1999.
Islamabad, Tuesday, AP |
