Good to see the elections being held. The timing must be right.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/140063.html
Islamabad - Pakistani parliamentary elections will be held before January 9, President Pervez Musharraf told a press briefing in Islamabad Sunday amid fears that he would delay the polls due by the middle of that month.
The National Assembly upper house would be dissolved at the end of its five-year term on November 15 as scheduled, while the four provincial assemblies would cease functioning on November 20.
Elections of all the new assemblies would take place on the same day and a caretaker government would serve from their dissolution until the polls, he added.
“I am going to be absolutely above-board and the rules of the game will be set by the Election Commission and adhered to by all and equally,” he stressed.
The military leader went on to say he would start his second term as a civilian leader “as soon as possible,” adding that the Supreme Court - members of which were replaced after Musharraf’s recent imposition of emergency rule - must first confirm his October 6 re-election.
Musharraf did not say when the period of emergency rule would end but defended the measure and said it would protect the preparations for the polls.
“The emergency is required to ensure peace in Pakistan and ensure the environment conducive to the elections,” he added.
During his first formal meeting with the media since the start of the emergency eight days earlier, Musharraf said the move was a “bitter pill to swallow” and the most difficult decision of his life.
“I had to take drastic measures to save the democratic process,” the president said.
Musharraf, an army general who seized power in a 1999 coup and went on to become a key US counterterrorism ally, declared the emergency in response to rising Islamic militancy in Pakistan and an unruly judiciary.
He said the conflict between the judiciary and the executive stemmed from “one man,” in a clear reference to the independent- minded Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who he suspended in March on abuse of office charges but later reinstated amid huge protests.
Chaudhry was among several judges sacked and placed under house arrest when the emergency was announced on November 3 with the accompanying suspension of the constitution.
he president also addressed the government’s recent curbs on the media also expected to be a topic following the government’s blackout of national and foreign news channels on Pakistan’s cable network.
He said there had to be checks on the media to prevent “defamation by design, distortion of facts and proliferation of non-truths and humiliation.”
:halo: