PAKISTAN ELECTIONS: BHUTTO RELEASED, IMRAN ARRESTED

BHUTTO REJECTS PAKISTAN'S CARETAKER GOVERNMENT
Islamabad, Nov 16 (DPA)

Pakistani liberal opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, after being released from house arrest Friday, rejected the caretaker government appointed by President Pervez Musharraf to hold general elections in January. "We do not accept this government. It has committed treason by taking oath under Provincial Constitutional Order (PCO)," she told reporters hours after she was freed from three days of house arrest in Lahore.

"We demand that Musharraf take off his uniform. We want to see a neutral caretaker government which is acceptable for all opposition parties," Bhutto said, adding that only such a government could ensure fair elections.

The PCO is the decree through which Musharraf, an army general who took power in a 1999 coup, imposed the state of emergency, suspending the constitution and taking several news channels off the air. Following the dissolution of the lower house of parliament at the end of its five-year term late Thursday, Musharraf Friday swore in a new cabinet headed by the chairman of the upper house, Mohammedmian Soomro.

Regarded as a loyal supporter of the military ruler, Soomro will oversee scheduled polls that Musharraf says will be held in the first week of January. The opposition is unappeased by the move and demands the general should quit both as president and as head of the armed forces.

SHAUKAT AZIZ ADMINISTRATION TO END
By Muhammad Najeeb, Islamabad, November 14 (IANS)

Pakistan's national assembly, the lower house of parliament, will stand dissolved from Thursday midnight after completion of its five-year term, bringing to an end the over three-year-old Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz's government. "The national assembly (or the lower house) completes its term Thursday night and is automatically dissolved," Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain told IANS. He said that no order is needed to dissolve the assembly and it would automatically be suspended at midnight. Likewise Aziz's cabinet would also be suspended, Hussain said. Aziz was elected prime minister by the parliament on Aug 27, 2004.

President Pervez Musharraf, who imposed emergency Nov 3, has said general elections would be held before Jan 9.

This is for the first time in the country's 60 years of history that parliament is completing its five-year tenure. Earlier, all parliaments have been dissolved either by the prime ministers, military dictators or presidents before completion of their term.

The political turmoil triggered by the imposition of the emergency and promulgation of Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) is actually worsening with all opposition political leaders under virtual arrest.

IMRAN KHAN ARRESTED

Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, who emerged from hiding, was arrested from Lahore Wednesday, a day after former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was barred from moving out of her party leader senator Latif Khosa's house in Lahore. Police detained him hours after he appeared at the first major student demonstration against the state of emergency. The plainclothes policemen arrested him from the campus of Punjab University in Lahore.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader was in hiding since the imposition of emergency rule on Nov 3 and had issued statements urging the students to rise against "the military dictatorship of General Musharraf".

Bhutto Tuesday announced the ending of power-sharing talks with Musharraf after the imposition of emergency. More than 1,000 policemen have surrounded Khosa's residence that is blocked with barbed wires. Bhutto has also appealed to other political forces, including his arch-rival and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, to join her in campaign against the military dictator.

Sharif, Khan and Jamaat-e-Islami Chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed have supported the call from Bhutto. While both Qazi and Khan have already been arrested, Sharif lives in exile in Saudi Arabia where he has been reportedly denied visa and cannot leave the country.

Meanwhile, civil society activists joined the protests by media and lawyers in Islamabad and elsewhere in the country Wednesday. The lawyers continued their boycott of courts and only attended serious criminal cases that too in lower courts.

Journalists in Islamabad staged noisy protest demonstration near the daily Dawn and Dawn TV offices and condemned restrictions against electronic media. The government soon after announcement of emergency had ordered cable operators to put all news channels off air. Most of the channels - national and international - are not available to Pakistani viewers through cable.

The government Tuesday formally ordered a ban on dish antennas and digital receivers through an administrative order, as the sale of these equipments increased manifold after the ban on cable televisions.

The journalists for the last five days are protesting near the office buildings of different TV channels. "We will continue our fight till the freedom," Huma Ali Shah, president of Pakistan Federation of Unions of Journalists said.