PAKISTAN:Pakistan's president, Gen Pervez Musharraf, poured cold water on speculation that he was planning a state of emergency yesterday, declaring instead that he would hold free and fair elections.
The announcement capped a day of rumours and conflicting reports which gripped the country and underscored the quandary facing Gen Musharraf and his allies as they struggle to retain power.
The president first cancelled a trip to Kabul, where he was to launch a US-sponsored peace conference with president Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan yesterday. Then his political lieutenants stoked speculation of emergency rule.
The deputy information minister, Tariq Azim, said the harsh move might be necessary to counter a range of "internal and external threats" ranging from Islamists to hawkish statements by the US presidential hopeful Barack Obama. "All options are under consideration," he said.
The news sent a shudder across the country and abroad. The Karachi stock market tumbled. The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, called Gen Musharraf at 2am local time yesterday for a 17-minute conversation. By lunchtime, international news channels were reporting on the speculation. Then it ended as abruptly as it had started, with a cascade of denials. "There is no possibility of an emergency," Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the leader of Gen Musharraf's party, PML-Q, said late yesterday.
"In the president's view there is no need at present to impose an emergency," said the information minister, Muhammad Ali Durrani. He hinted that the speculation was fomented by Gen Musharraf's political allies who realise that if he is ejected from power, they go too.
"The president was under pressure from different political parties to impose an emergency, but he believes in holding free and fair elections and is not in favour of any step that hinders it," he said. The U-turn highlights the apparent disarray in the Musharraf camp as a tangled confrontation between the government, opposition and judiciary - which started with his botched attempt to fire the chief justice, Muhammad Iftikhar Chaudhry, in March - moves towards a climax.
Gen Musharraf is trying to cling to power but his options are narrowing. Ideally, he wants to be re-elected president between mid-September and mid-October for a further five years. But the plan is hostage to a defiant supreme court. Last month, the court ruled against Gen Musharraf in his four-month vendetta against the chief justice. The decision was a unique victory for Pakistan's civilians and emboldened a pro-democracy movement that has swept the country.
Yesterday the court started hearing an application by Gen Musharraf's other great enemy, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who wants to return from exile.
If the action succeeds, he could return immediately, greatly angering Gen Musharraf. The case continues next week.
President George Bush is also piling on pressure for better results in the hunt for al-Qaeda suspects - pressure that compounds perceptions in Pakistan that the general is little more than a US puppet. Before going on holiday yesterday, Mr Bush said he expected Gen Musharraf to take "swift action if there is actionable intelligence inside his country".
Gen Musharraf is seeking to salve his woes through powersharing talks with the main opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, who is in self-exile. But the prospects of a deal are constrained by Ms Bhutto's insistence that Gen Musharraf must first resign as army chief, a leap of faith the general appears unwilling to make.
Ms Bhutto said yesterday she was very relieved that rumors of an imminent state of emergency proved not to be true. "I thought the imposition of emergency would be a very retrograde step and take us further away from the goal of the democratisation of Pakistan."