The Hindu : Front Page : ‘Elections before January 9’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 12, 2007
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‘Elections before January 9’

Nirupama Subramanian

Musharraf refuses to set a date for lifting Emergency

— PHOTO: AP

GENERAL’S ASSURANCE: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf arrives to address the international media in Islamabad on Sunday.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Sunday announced that parliamentary elections would be held in the first week of 2008, before January 9, but he did not say whether the Constitution would be restored by then.

He also refused to set a date for lifting the Emergency, suggesting instead that it would help in holding free and fair elections.

Gen. Musharraf told a press conference that the National Assembly would be dissolved on November 15, the day its term ends, and provincial Assemblies five days later. This would make the way for caretaker governments both at the centre and in the provinces.

Allowing for the time frame of 45 to 60 days, within which the elections have to be held after the dissolution of the Assemblies, Gen. Musharraf said, “We should have elections before January 9.”

Gen. Musharraf said he wanted to be sworn in as a civilian President as soon as the Supreme Court allowed the notification of his victory in the October 6 Presidential election.

Describing the decision to impose the Emergency as a “bitter pill,” he said it had helped him to restore the process of transition to democracy, which had been in danger of derailment before last Saturday.

It was the Pakistan ruler’s first media outing after the November 3 proclamation of Emergency, and his first at Aiwan-e-Sadr, the civilian presidency, rather than at the Army House in Rawalpindi, the usual venue until now.

The date for the parliamentary and provincial elections is in accordance with the constitutional schedule, and Gen. Musharraf said it reflected his commitment to follow the Constitution.

“In view of the disturbed environment, the terrorist attacks, the bomb blasts, the suicide bombers, the situation on the frontier … I can assure that it is the Emergency which reinforces the hands to control all this and keep it in check. It will ensure absolutely fair and transparent elections because we are not going to interfere in the process of elections,” he said.

Gen. Musharraf said only those disturbing the law and order situation had been arrested. All those jailed would be released before the election and would be able to participate in campaigning, he said, but not if “they want to create anarchy in Pakistan in the name of elections.”

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