Supreme Court dismisses challenges to Musharraf's rule

Pakistan's new government-selected Supreme Court judges dismissed legal challenges to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's continued rule Monday.

Opposition figures denounced the court as lacking credibility because the tribunal was stripped of independentjudges as one of the first acts by Musharraf afterheestablished emergency rule on Nov. 3.

The judges struck down several challenges to Musharraf's right tohave run for re-election while still army chief.

Opponents had argued that he ought to have been disqualified under a constitutional ban on public servants running for elected office, which they said applied because Musharraf was still army chief.

The move paves the way for Musharraf to step down as army chief. He had vowed earlier to remove his uniform and be sworn in as a civilian president for his next five-year term if the court cleared his Oct. 6 re-election.

Opposition petitions withdrawn

Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar dismissed three opposition petitions challenging Musharraf's victory. Two were "withdrawn" because opposition lawyers were not present in court, he said, and the third was withdrawn by a lawyer for the party of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, who suggested the court was illegitimate.

"We asked for [the case] to be postponed because we said there is no constitution,"Bhutto told reporters in Karachi.

The court said it will rule on another petition Thursday and only after that can the judges authorize the election commission to announce Musharraf as the winner of the vote.

The petition is from a man whose candidacy for the presidential election was rejected by the election commission.

Critics say Musharraf's Nov. 3 clampdown, which led to widespread political turmoil, came days ahead of a Supreme Court decision that would have found his re-election illegal.

However, one observer, Qamar-ul Huda, a senior program officer at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington,told CBC News the judges' decisions are viewed as very serious ones.

"People do want to portray them as puppets and portray them as non-independents,"he said. "But historically those picked for the Supreme Court positions, they're well known in the country and within the system, and they're scholars who read the law very thoroughly."

Emergency rule in Pakistan's 'best interest'

The United States has called for emergency rule to end before the parliamentary elections take place, and for Musharraf to end his dual role as president and army chief.

With pressure growing for the country to return to democracy, the government announced Monday that the election will take place Jan. 8.

Musharraf has insisted emergency rule powers, enacted to help the government curb Islamic extremism, will not be lifted unless the situation improves.

Huda said it'll be interesting to see which political figures emerge inthe upcoming election.

"The subtext of this emergency rule is to see who surfaces within this process — who surfaces as pro-Western, who surfaces as moderate...,"he said.

Musharrafagain defended the state of emergency, onSunday at a ceremony to inaugurate a bridge in the southern port city of Karachi.

"I took this decision in the best interest of Pakistan," he told the state news agency. "I could have said thank you and walked away. But this was not the right approach because I cannot watch this country go down in front of me after so many achievements and such an economic turnaround."

Thousands of protesters, including many opposition party members, have been arrested since the imposition of emergency rule.