PAKISTAN: Pakistan's military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf, was confirmed as president yesterday after he won a series of confidence votes in the national parliament and provincial assemblies.
The move means the general, who took power in a bloodless coup four years ago, will remain president until the end of 2007.
The lower house of parliament and the assemblies of Punjab, Sindh, North West Frontier province and Baluchistan, voted unanimously in favour of Gen Musharraf but some secular opposition parties walked out saying the process was a sham and rejecting the vote as an intrusion into the presidency by a serving military general.
Pakistan's Prime Minister, Mr Zafarullah Khan Jamali, said parliament had "consolidated" Gen Musharraf's position.
It was the second boost for the president in a week. At the end of last month legislators amended the constitution to allow the president to dissolve parliament and dismiss the prime minister.
Gen Musharraf assured his future as president by agreeing a deal with a coalition of Islamist parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). They backed his presidency in return for a promise that he step down as army chief by the end of 2004.
Gen Musharraf has held the positions of president and army chief of staff since winning a controversial referendum in 2002.
The MMA, which opposes Gen Musharraf's decision to side with the United States in the war against terror, has said that it supported the amendments to end the political deadlock which had paralysed parliament since elections two years ago.
The moves will be a fillip for the Pakistani leader ahead of the visit of India's prime minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, for an important regional summit in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. Pakistan has deployed 10,000 armed police and soldiers in the city. The security operation follows two attempts to kill Gen Musharraf in the last month that have been blamed on Islamist militants. The need to fight extremists in Pakistan has been one of Gen Musharraf's justifications for keeping a tight grip on the country as both president and head of the country's powerful military.
Gen Musharraf has been targeted by groups who have been angered not only by his decision to allow US soldiers to flush out the remnants of the Taliban regime hiding in the country's north-west but also by his recent calls to be flexible over the Himalayan state of Kashmir, which is split between India and Pakistan.
Hopes have risen that the summit will help secure a breakthrough in relations. - (Guardian service)