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Igor Dunjic-Duke
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's parliamentary elections will he held
by mid-February, a month later than planned, the country's military
ruler said Thursday, a day after President Bush urged him to hold the
vote on time.
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Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto denounced President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf's pledge as insufficient and said he should step down as
army chief within a week.
With anger over military rule spreading, the United States and
domestic opponents are stepping up pressure on Musharraf to end the
emergency rule imposed Saturday, shed his uniform and hold elections
as planned in January.
Bush, who counts Musharraf as a key ally in the war on terror,
telephoned him Wednesday to say he should step down as the military
chief and hold the vote on schedule.
And Bhutto, who had been in talks with Musharraf on forming a post-
election alliance, added to the pressure by deciding to join protests
against the emergency. Authorities reportedly arrested hundreds of her
supporters overnight to head off a major rally she is planning near
Islamabad on Friday.
News that elections would be held by mid-February was flashed on state-
run television, which quoted Musharraf as saying the vote would be
delayed by not more than one month. The government said earlier this
week that the vote could be delayed by as long as a year.
Musharraf's decision was announced after a meeting of his National
Security Council.
The announcement was seen as an indication that the emergency would be
short-lived because authorities would likely have to ease up on
security restrictions to allow campaigning.
Attorney General Malik Mohammed Qayyum forecast that the state of
emergency would be lifted in "one or two" months.
"It depends on how the law and order situation improves," Qayyum told
The Associated Press.
Musharraf maintains that restoring democracy is his ultimate aim and
the emergency was needed to prevent political instability, protect
economic growth, and maintain the campaign against extremism and
terrorism.
Pakistan, a country of 160 million, has been wracked by Taliban and al-
Qaida-linked violence, including suicide bombings and clashes in its
troubled northwest, where the insurgents have in recent weeks scored a
series of victories against government forces.
Critics, however, say Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup,
imposed the emergency measures - suspending the constitution, blacking
out independent TV news networks - to maintain his own grip on power.
The moves came ahead of a Supreme Court ruling on the legality of his
recent re-election as president.
Days of protests, most of them by lawyers angered by the attacks on
the judiciary, have been quickly and sometimes brutally put down.
Thursday was no different. In Islamabad, police chased about 20 high-
school students into the city's bar association headquarters after
they showed up in solidarity with dozens of protesting lawyers, who
were observing the fourth day of a nationwide strike.
In Lahore, in eastern Pakistan, more than 100 professors boycotted
classes and marched on the campus of the state-run University of the
Punjab.