Pakistani President Calls for January Polls

World | November 11, 2007, Sunday // 00:00

Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf called on the country's electoral commission to schedule parliamentary polls as soon as possible, preferably by early-January, but gave no sign he planned to suspend martial law.

In his first press conference since imposing the state of emergency a week earlier, Musharraf defended his decision, despite mounting criticism from political opponents at home and allies abroad.

The martial law was needed in order to ensure the parliamentary elections, both at nationwide and provincial levels, went on smoothly, he argued.

Political leaders who have been arrested when the state of emergency was introduced would be freed, Musharraf said, but could find themselves back under house arrest if they "disturb law and order."

The state of emergency saw the constitution suspended, the judiciary decimated by the arrest of numerous judges and lawyers, while independent news stations were silenced.

Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, with whom Musharraf was thought to have reached a power-sharing agreement, is opposing the martial law and has called on her supporters to march from Lahore in the east of the country to capital Islamabad as a sign of protest.

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