US welcomes poll pledge

By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON, Nov 8: The White House, which has been pressing President Pervez Musharraf to commit to elections he had long promised, on Thursday praised his announcement that polls will be held in February as a welcome signal.

“We think it is a good thing that President Musharraf has clarified the election date for the Pakistani people,” said White House Press Secretary Dana Perino.

President Musharraf said earlier on Thursday that parliamentary elections would be held by mid-February. The announcement comes a day after President Bush personally called Gen Musharraf to register his complaint about the state of affairs in Pakistan.

With anger over military rule spreading in Pakistan, the US is stepping up pressure on Gen Musharraf to end the emergency rule imposed on Saturday, shed his uniform and hold elections as planned.

Ms Perino said that while the United States did not want to be seen as interfering in Pakistani politics, it considered Gen Musharraf’s emergency a ‘setback’ because it was outside the Constitution.

“However, we noted … that President Musharraf has clarified for the Pakistani people that he will hold elections by February 15 — and we think that it was important for the Pakistani people to have heard that,” she added.

Asked if President Bush tell Gen Musharraf to set the date when he telephoned the Pakistani leader, the White House press secretary said: “I’m not going to give you any more comment about the call.” She added: “Obviously … from the beginning of this state of emergency that President Bush was calling on President Musharraf to hold the elections, and also to take off his uniform.”

Reminded that elections were originally scheduled to be held in January, Ms Perino said the Pakistani Constitution required the elections to be held within 60 to 90 days.

A reporter reminded the press secretary that on Wednesday President Bush spoke directly to the Iranian people, urging them to increase their struggle for democracy and asked if he was going to support the Pakistani protesters as well. “The president supports everybody in Pakistan because of the importance that we place on the region. We’ve had — our relationship with Pakistan has gone back and forth over the years,” Ms Perino said.“We are friends with the Pakistanis. But the president wants most of all is to help them establish a democracy that can be sustainable, because that’s ultimately how the region will live in peace.”

Asked if President Bush still have faith and confidence that Gen Musharraf could restore democracy to Pakistan, Ms Perino said: “We would like to see him return to those elections as he said today he would do. The uniform is still an issue. The president called on him to take it off; he said you can’t be both the president and the head of the army. And we’ll see what -- where that goes.”

Ms Perino said that any power-sharing deal between Gen Musharraf and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto would have to be worked out by the two leaders. “What we would encourage is … to allow for peaceful protests, to allow for open dialogue between the opposition parties so that they can work through these issues and get back to a democracy.”

The White House press secretary refused to disclose if President Bush gave Gen Musharraf a specific date for ending the state of emergency, saying: “You have what I provided. I don’t have anything else to give you.”




Dawn 09/Nov/07