Emergency to end today but analysts keep fingers crossed

Islamabad: Though relieved that emergency rule will, in all likelihood, be lifted on Saturday, critics say it might make little difference for an opposition which complains that President Pervez Musharraf can still engineer an election win for his allies.

With the January 8 parliamentary elections just weeks away, restrictions on media and the judiciary still stacked the cards in favour of Musharraf and his caretaker government, opposition members and political analysts said.

Musharraf imposed the emergency on November 3, suspended the constitution and purged the Supreme Court to fend off challenges to his re-election, which new hand-picked judges have since rubber-stamped.

Media curbs

"The lifting of the emergency is just an ornamental thing," said Khawaja Harris, a senior lawyer working with opposition leader and former prime minister Nawiz Sharif's camp. "In the meantime, Musharraf has set the rules of the game and everything he wanted to install is already in place."

Several judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who were deposed by Musharraf are still being held under house arrest.

The media this week criticised a ban on live broadcasts as an attempt to control election coverage. That will not change after the end of the emergency, political commentators say.

Election monitors say the caretaker administration can fix the result. Benazir Bhutto's party, as also Sharif's has expressed fears of a rigged poll.

Critics say the unpopular Musharraf, who stepped down as army chief last month fears an opposition-run parliament could move to impeach him over accusations he acted unconstitutionally in securing a new term as president.

"The detention of lawyers, the absence of a level-playing field and the ability of the election commission to enforce a code of ethics will not change," said political analyst Nasim Zehra.

Sharif, who has been barred from standing because of past criminal convictions he says were politically motivated, released his manifesto yesterday and called for the restoration of sacked judges and the elimination of the military from politics.

Critics are worried about any decree to give Musharraf protection from attempts in courts to prosecute him for breaking the constitution - a move that has been carried out before by rulers in Pakistan's long history of military interference.