Pakistan poll 'to go ahead'
Updated on 05 November 2007
Pakistan's prime minister says elections will go ahead in January, despite the imposition of emergency rule in the country at the weekend.
Pakistan's leaders have said elections will go ahead in January, despite President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule at the weekend.
The announcement, by the country's prime minister, came as thousands of lawyers once again clashed with police on the streets of the main cities.
Meanwhile President Musharraf told diplomats from more than 80 countries that he would resign his post as head of the army once "legal issues" were resolved.
International pressure on him has increased, with both the US and United Kingdom governments announcing they will be reviewing aid to Pakistan unless the democratic process is restored.
President Musharraf suggested that lawyers, not terrorists, were destabilising Pakistan. They say HE is the problem.
More than 2,000 laywers demonstrated outside the high court in Lahore this morning in protest at the state of emergency. They clashed with police weilding batons and bamboo sticks.
Some lawyers hurled rocks - and the police hurled them back.
But only those few in Pakistan with satellite TV have seen these pictures from the private Dawn channel. Cable services have been cut, and state TV is not showing scenes of violence.
Lahore's detention centres are filling up with unusual prisoners. 250 lawyers were arrested today, who join several dozen human rights campaigners - some of them elderly - seized at a meeting last night.
President Musharraf suggested that lawyers, not terrorists, were destabilising Pakistan. They say HE is the problem.
It was a similar scene at Karachi high court, where striking and protesting lawyers clashed with police, and several were arrested. There is no exact number, but at least 400 more people, mainly lawyers, have been detained across the country today.
'I am determined to execute this third stage of transition fully and I'm determined to remove my uniform once we correct these pillars in judiciary and the executive and the parliament.'President Pervez Musharraf
The protests were calmer in Islamabad. The judges who were going to rule that President Musharraf's election last month was illegal are being held incomunicado.
The political opposition is wavering; only the legal establishment is a real challenge to the president.
President Musharraf, meanwhile, was shown on state TV explaining his actions to resident ambassadors. It seems that his target was the judiciary - he told them he still plans to become a civilian president.
But Musharraf's international backers are alarmed. The prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, was shown meeting the defence committee. He said in a statement that elections would be held by January, as planned before the state of emergency was imposed.
The Karachi stock market lost over 4 per cent of its value today. President Musharraf hopes to neutralise the legal establishment, co-opt opposition politicians and retain power without damaging international relations or the economy. It is a gamble, but it may yet pay off.
