AIDES to Pakistan's ousted prime minister, Ms Benazir Bhutto, said yesterday she was in high spirits and ready to fight her dismissal by President Farooq Leghari.
However, the 43-year-old leader spent her first day out of office as a virtual prisoner at her official home in Islamabad, guarded by troops who barred her former ministers from meeting her.
Ms Bhutto was sacked yesterday for a second time in her turbulent political career, accused by the president of heading a government beleagured by corruption, nepotism and misrule.
"Public faith in the integrity and honesty of the government has disappeared," Mr Leghari said in a blistering indictment of her-three-year rule.
Mr Leghari later swore in the veteran politician, Mr Meraj Khalid (80), at the head of a nine-member caretaker cabinet to supervise early elections the president called for February 3rd, 1997.
Ms Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) denounced what it called - the unconstitutional dismissal of the elected government in the darkness of night".
But the main opposition leader, Mr Nawaz Sharif, said Ms Bhutto's fall was "deliverance for the people" and expressed confidence his Pakistan Muslim League would win the general election.
Witnesses said soldiers in the Punjab provincial capital of Lahore had detained Ms Bhutto's husband, Mr Asif Ali Zardari, who has been at the centre of corruption allegations.
The military, which has ruled the Islamic nation for 24 years of the nearly 50 years of independence since 1947, kept a low profile, but political observers said Mr Leghari could not have acted without securing the approval and co-operation of the generals.
Troops moved into the capital Islamabad in the early hours to guard key installations, but stayed off the streets, which remained calm, apart from a few firecrackers let off by celebrating shopkeepers. Schools and businesses opened as usual.
In nearby Rawalpindi, some 200 opposition party supporters fired assault rifles into the air to celebrate Ms Bhutto's dismissal and hoisted a traffic policeman on their shoulders in joy.
Neighbouring India reacted calmly to the news, saying it was an internal affair that would not affect ties with Pakistan, with whom Delhi has fought three wars since the end of British rule in 1947.
Ms Bhutto was confined to the official prime minister's residence, with her telephone lines out of action and troops turning back former ministers who tried to visit her.
Mr Imran Khan, Pakistan's cricketer-turned-politician, welcomed Ms Bhutto's sacking, but said his party would only fight the polls if electoral reforms and a national census were implemented.
Mr Imran, who founded the Tehreek-e-Insaaf (Justice Movement) party this year, said his party contributed to Ms Bhutto's fall by focusing attention on corruption.
The leader of the religious Jamaat-i-Islamic opposition party also hailed Ms Bhutto's dismissal, but said corrupt politicians should be brought to book before any new elections.