Date:05/02/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/02/05/stories/2007020503491500.htm

International

Pakistan ponders emergency option

Nirupama Subramanian

Concern over rising violence

ISLAMABAD: Against the backdrop of mounting political uncertainty in Pakistan, the option before President Pervez Musharraf to postpone Parliament elections by declaring an emergency has just got another public airing.

Quoting an unnamed official, The News reported on Sunday that the Government was seriously considering proposing to the President that in view of the tense law and order situation and the uncertainty due to "politics of agitation", he should proclaim an emergency.

A spate of suicide bombings since January 26, including one in Islamabad, has claimed several lives. The latest incident was on Saturday when a suicide bomber rammed the jeep he was driving through an army convoy, killing two soldiers and injuring seven.

Over the last few days too, the capital city has been in the grip of large-scale unrest with protests by religious groups against the Government's demolition of mosques that it said had encroached on public land.

Moreover, with elections approaching, all Opposition political parties — even Benazir Bhutto's People's Party of Pakistan that is said to be close to a political deal with Gen. Musharraf — unanimously agree on one point — that the President must be thwarted from implementing a rumoured plan for re-election from the present electoral college comprising the National Assembly and the Provincial Assemblies.

The newspaper quoted the official as saying that in view of the prevailing climate, one option before the President was the imposition of emergency. If endorsed by a mandatory joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament - the National Assembly and the Senate — within two months of its proclamation, the emergency would extend the National Assembly's life by a year. Several times, senior politicians of the ruling party have openly talked about using this option, and it appears that the Government is once again floating the idea.